FROM-THE-LIBRARY-OF- 
A.   W.   Ryder 


MAKERS 
LITERATURE 

EDITED    BY 

JOHN  MORLEY 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


MAKERS 
LITERATURE 

EDITED    BY 

JOHN   AVORLBY 


c        * 


AACAULAY 


JAMES  COTTER  MORISON,  M.  A. 

AUTHOR    OF 

"THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  ST.   BERNARD1 
ETC. 


A  .    L,  .   F    O   \V   L. 

PUB  L.TS  HE.R 

N  E.W     YORK 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGK 

SKETCH  OF  MACAULAY'S  LIFE  UP  TO  THE  FALL  OF  THE  MEL- 
BOURNE GOVERNMENT 1 


CHAPTER  II. 
CHARACTERISTICS       38 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  "ESSAYS" 66 

CHAPTER  IV. 

NARRATIVE  OF  MACAULAY'S  LIFE  RESUMED  UP  TO  THE  APPEAR- 
ANCE OF  THE  "  HISTORY  " »     106 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  "HISTORY" 136 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  END  171 


MACAULAY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

SKETCH     OF     MACAULj 

ADMINISTRATION    OF    LORD    MELBOURNE. 

[1800-1841.] 

THE  prosperity  which  attended  Macaulay  all  through  life 
may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  the  moment  of  his  birth. 
Of  all  good  gifts  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  fortune  to 
bestow,  none  can  surpass  the  being  born  of  wise,  honour- 
able, and  tender  parents :  and  this  lot  fell  to  him.  He 
came  of  a  good  stock,  though  not  of  the  kind  most  rec- 
ognized by  Colleges  of  Arms.  Descended  from  Scotch 
Presbyterians — ministers  many  of  them — on  his  father's 
side,  and  from  a  Quaker  family  on  his  mother's,  he  prob- 
ably united  as  many  guarantees  of  "good  birth,"  in  the 
moral  sense  of  the  words,  as  could  be  found  in  these 
islands  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  His  mother  (nee 
Selina  Mills)  appears  to  have  been  a  woman  of  warm- 
hearted and  affectionate  temper,  yet  clear-headed  and  firm 
withal,  and  with  a  good  eye  for  the  influences  which  go 
to  the  formation  of  character.  Though  full  of  a  young 
mother's  natural  pride  at  the  talent  and  mental  precocity 


'<  '2T  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 


-soil;  the  subject  of  this  volume,  Thomas 
Babington  Macaulay  (born  October  25,  1800),  she  was 
wise  enough  to  eschew  even  the  semblance  of  spoiling. 
The  boy  found,  like  many  studious  children,  that  he 
could  spend  his  time  with  more  pleasure,  and  probably 
with  more  profit,  in  reading  at  home  than  in  lessons  at 
school,  and  consequently  exerted  daily  that  passive  resist- 
ance against  leaving  home  which  many  mothers  have  not 
the  strength  to  overcome.  Mrs.  Macaulay  always  met 
appeals  grounded  on  the  unfavourableness  of  the  weather 
with  the  stoical  answer  :  "  No,  Tom  ;  if  it  rains  cats  and 
dogs  you  shall  go."  As  a  mere  infant,  his  knowledge, 
and  his  power  of  working  it  up  into  literary  form,  were 
equally  extraordinary.  Compositions  in  prose  and  verse, 
histories,  epics,  odes,  and  hymns  flowed  with  equal  free- 
dom, and  correctness  in  point  of  language,  from  his  facile 
pen.  He  was  regarded,  as  he  well  deserved  to  be,  as  a 
prodigy,  not  only  by  his  parents,  but  by  others  who 
might  be  presumed  to  be  less  partial  critics.  Mrs.  Han- 
nah More,  who  in  certain  circles  almost  assumed  the  char- 
acter of  a  female  Dr.  Johnson,  and  director  of  taste,  pro- 
nounced little  Macaulay's  hymns  "  quite  extraordinary 
for  such  a  baby."  The  wise  mother  treasured  these 
things  in  her  heart,  but  carefully  shielded  her  child  from 
the  corrupting  influences  of  early  flattery.  "  You  will  be- 
lieve," she  writes,  "  that  we  never  appear  to  regard  any- 
thing he  does  as  anything  more  than  a  school-boy's  amuse- 
ment." Genuine  maternal  tenderness,  without  a  trace  of 
weak  indulgence,  seems  to  have  marked  this  excellent 
woman's  treatment  of  her  children.  When  once  he  fell 
ill  at  school,  she  came  and  nursed  him  with  such  affec- 
tion that  years  afterwards  he  referred  to  the  circumstance 
with  vivid  emotion  : 


i.]  HIS  MOTHER.  3 

"  There  is  nothing  I  remember  with  so  much  pleasure  as  the  time 
when  you  nursed  me  at  Aspenden.  How  sick  and  sleepless  and 
weak  I  was,  lying  in  bed,  when  I  was  told  that  you  were  come !  How 
well  I  remember  with  what  an  ecstasy  of  joy  I  saw  that  face  ap- 
proaching me !  The  sound  of  your  voice,  the  touch  of  your  hand,  are 
present  to  me  now,  and  will  be,  I  trust  in  God,  to  my  last  hour." 

But  many  a  devoted  mother  could  watch  by  the  sick- 
bed of  her  son  for  weeks  without  sleep,  who  would  not 
have  the  courage  to  keep  him  up  to  a  high  standard  of 
literary  performance.  When  he  was  not  yet  thirteen  she 
wrote  to  him : 

"  I  know  you  write  with  great  ease  to  yourself,  and  would  rather 
write  ten  poems  than  prune  one.  All  your  pieces  are  much  mended 
after  a  little  reflection ;  therefore,  take  your  solitary  walks  and  think 
over  each  separate  thing.  Spare  no  time  or  trouble,  and  render  each 
piece  as  perfect  as  you  can,  and  then  leave  the  event  without  one  anx- 
ious thought.  I  have  always  admired  a  saying  of  one  of  the  old  hea- 
then philosophers  ;  when  a  friend  was  condoling  with  him  that  he  so 
well  deserved  of  the  gods,  and  yet  they  did  not  shower  their  favours 
on  him  as  on  some  others  less  worthy,  he  answered, 'I  will  continue 
to  deserve  well  of  them.'  So  do  you,  my  dearest." 

Deep,  sober,  clear-eyed  love  watched  over  Macaulay's 
childhood.  His  mother  lived  long  enough  to  see  her  son 
on  the  high-road  to  honour  and  fame,  and  died  almost 
immediately  after  he  had  made  his  first  great  speech  on 
the  Reform  Bill  in  1831. 

His  father,  Zachary,  was  a  man  cast  in  an  heroic  mould, 
who  reproduced,  one  might  surmise,  the  moral  features  of 
some  stern  old  Scotch  Covenanter  among  his  ancestors, 
and  never  quite  fitted  into  the  age  in  which  it  was  his  lot 
to  live.  There  was  a  latent  faculty  in  him  which,  in  spite 
of  his  long  and  laborious  life,  he  was  never  able  com- 
pletely to  unfold.  A  silent,  austere,  earnest,  patient,  en- 


4  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

during  man,  almost  wholly  without  the  gift  of  speech,  and 
the  power  of  uttering  the  deep,  involved  thought  that  was 
in  him — a  man  after  Carlyle's  own  heart,  if  he  could  have 
seen  anything  good  in  an  emancipator  of  negroes.  A 
feeling  of  respect  bordering  on  reverence  is  excited  by 
the  little  we  know  of  Macaulay's  father — his  piety,  his 
zeal,  his  self-sacrifice  to  the  cause  to  which  he  devoted  his 
mind,  body,  and  estate;  even  the  gloom  and  moroseness 
of  his  latter  years,  all  point  to  a  character  of  finer  fibre 
and  loftier  strain,  many  might  be  disposed  to  think,  than 
that  of  his  eloquent  and  brilliant  son.  There  are  parallel 
cases  on  record  of  men  endowed  with  over-abundance  of 
thought  and  feeling,  for  which  they  never  find  adequate 
expression,  who  have  had  sons  in  whose  case  the  spell 
which  sealed  their  own  lips  to  silence  is  broken — sons 
who  can  find  ready  utterance  for  the  burden  of  thought 
which  lay  imprisoned  in  their  sires,  partly  because  they 
were  not  overfull,  as  their  fathers  were.  Diderot  was 
such  a  case.  He  always  said  that  he  was  not  to  be  com- 
pared to  his  father,  the  cutler  of  Langres;  and  declared 
he  was  never  so  pleased  in  his  life  as  when  a  fellow-towns- 
man said  to  him,  "  Ah,  M.  Diderot,  you  are  a  very  famous 
man,  but  you  will  never  be  half  the  man  your  father  was." 
Carlyle  always  spoke  of  his  father  in  similar  language. 
But  the  closest  analogy  to  the  two  Macaulays  is  that  of 
the  two  Mirabeaus,  the  crabbed,  old  "  friend  of  man," 
and  the  erratic  genius,  the  orator  Gabrielle  Honore.  It 
is  certainly  "a  likeness  in  unlikeness"  of  no  common 
kind;  and  nothing  can  be  more  dissimilar  than  the  two 
pairs  of  men ;  but  the  similarity  of  relation  of  elder  to 
younger  in  the  two  cases  is  all  the  more  remarkable. 

In   this   grave,  well-ordered  home   Macaulay  passed   a 
happy  childhood.     He  had  three  brothers  and  five  sisters, 


1]  HIS  FATHER.  5 

all  his  juniors,  and  for  them  he  always  felt  a  fraternal 
affection  which  bordered  on  a  passion.  His  trials,  as 
already  implied,  commenced  when  he  had  to  leave  his 
books,  his  parents,  and  his  playmates  for  a  distant  school 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cambridge.  Time  never  seems 
to  have  completely  assuaged  his  home-sickness;  and  his 
letters  to  his  mother  express,  in  a  style  of  precocious  ma- 
turity, the  artless  yearnings  and  affectionate  grief  of  a 
child.  Nothing  more  dutiful,  tender,  and  intelligent  can 
well  be  conceived.  His  second  half-year  seems  to  have 
been  even  more  painful  to  bear  than  the  first;  his  biog- 
rapher will  not  print  the  letter  he  wrote  immediately  af- 
ter his  return  to  school  at  the  end  of  the  summer  holi- 
days— it  would  be  "too  cruel."  This  is  the  second — 
written  two  months  before  he  had  ended  his  thirteenth 
year: 

"  Shelford,  August  14, 1813. 

"  MY  DEAR  MAMMA, — I  must  confess  that  I  have  been  a  little  dis- 
appointed at  not  receiving  a  letter  from  home  to-day.  I  hope,  how- 
ever, for  one  to-morrow.  My  spirits  are  far  more  depressed  by  leav- 
ing home  than  they  were  last  half-year.  Everything  brings  home  to 
my  recollection.  Everything  I  read,  or  see,  or  hear  brings  it  to  my 
mind.  You  told  me  I  should  be  happy  when  I  once  came  here,  but 
not  an  hour  passes  in  which  I  do  not  shed  tears  at  thinking  of  home. 
Every  hope,  however  unlikely  to  be  realized,  affords  me  some  small 
consolation.  The  morning  on  which  I  went,  you  told  me  that  possi- 
bly I  might  come  home  before  the  holidays.  If  you  can  confirm 
that  hope,  believe  me  when  I  assure  you  there  is  nothing  which  I 
would  not  give  for  one  instant's  sight  of  home.  Tell  me  in  your 
next,  expressly,  if  you  can,  whether  or  no  there  is  any  likelihood  of 
my  coming  home  before  the  holidays.  If  I  could  gain  papa's  leave, 
I  should  select  my  birthday,  October  25,  as  the  time  which  I  should 
wish  to  spend  at  that  home  which  absence  renders  still  dearer  to 
me.  I  think  I  see  you  sitting  by  papa  just  after  his  dinner,  reading 
my  letter,  and  turning  to  him  with  an  inquisitive  glance  at  the  end 
of  the  paragraph.  I  think,  too,  that  I  see  his  expressive  shake  of 


6  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

the  head  at  it.  Oh  may  I  be  mistaken !  You  cannot  conceive  what 
an  alteration  a  favorable  answer  would  produce  on  me.  If  your  ap- 
probation of  my  request  depends  upon  my  advancing  in  study,  I  will 
work  like  a  cart-horse.  If  you  should  refuse  it,  you  will  deprive  me 
of  the  most  pleasing  Allusion  which  I  ever  experienced  in  my  life. 
Pray  do  not  fail  to  write  speedily. — Your  dutiful  and  affectionate 
son, 


T.  B.  MACAULAY." 


The  urgent  and  pathetic  appeal  was  not  successful.  The 
stern  father  did  shake  his  head  as  the  boy  had  feared,  and 
the  "  pleasing  illusion "  was  not  realized. 

His  school,  though  a  private  one,  was  of  a  superior  kind. 
There  he  laid  the  foundation  of  his  future  scholarship. 
But  what  surprises  most  is,  that  in  the  midst  of  the  usually 
engrossing  occupation  of  a  diligent  school-boy,  with  his 
Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  he  found  time  to  gratify 
that  insatiable  thirst  for  European  literature  which  he 
retained  through  life.  Before  he  was  fifteen  we  find  him 
recommending  his  mother  to  read  Boccaccio,  at  least  in 
Dryden's  metrical  version,  and  weighing  him  against 
Chaucer,  to  whom  he  "  infinitely  prefers  him."  This 
shows,  at  any  rate,  that  no  Puritanic  surveillance  directed 
his  choice  of  books.  The  fault  seems  to  have  been  rather 
the  other  way,  and  he  enjoyed  an  excess  of  liberty,  in 
being  allowed  to  indulge  almost  without  restraint  his 
strong  partiality  for  the  lighter  and  more  attractive  forms 
of  literature,  to  the  neglect  of  austerer  studies.  Poetry 
and  prose  fiction  remained  through  life  Macaulay's  favorite 
reading.  And  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  at  any  time 
was  ever  submitted,  by  his  teachers  or  himself,  to  a  mental 
discipline  of  a  more  bracing  kind.  His  father  apparently 
considered  that  the  formation  of  his  son's  mind  was  no 
part  of  his  duty.  Engrossed  in  his  crusade  against  sla- 
very, in  which  cause  "  he  laboured  as  men  labour  for  the 


i.]  SCHOOL.  7 

honours  of  a  profession,  or  for  the  subsistence  of  their 
children,"  he  left  the  mental  training  of  young  Macaulay 
to  hired  teachers — except  in  one  particular,  which  will  be 
readily  divined.  The  principles  of  evangelical  religion 
were  inculcated  with  more  zeal  and  persistence  than  dis- 
cretion. It  is  the  ever-recurring  error  of  old  and  serious 
minds,  to  think  that  the  loftier  views  of  life  and  duty, 
the  moral  beliefs  which  they  themselves,  in  the  course  of 
years,  after  a  long  experience,  perhaps  of  a  very  different 
code  of  ethics,  have  acquired,  can  be  transplanted  by  pre- 
cept, full-grown  and  vigorous,  into  the  minds  of  the  young. 
The  man  of  fifty,  forgetting  his  own  youth,  or  remember- 
ing it  only  with  horror,  wishes  his  son  to  think  and  feel 
and  act  as  he  does  himself.  He  should  wish  him  the  lan- 
guid pulse  and  failing  vigour  of  decay  at  the  same  time. 
In  any  case,  the  attempt  to  impart  "  vital  religion  "  to 
Macaulay  signally  failed,  and  possibly  was  the  indirect 
cause  of  the  markedly  unspiritual  tone  of  his  writings,  and 
of  his  resolute  silence  on  questions  of  ultimate  beliefs. 
The  son's  taste  for  poetry,  novels,  and  "  worldly  literature" 
produced  a  suspicious  querulousness  in  the  elder  Macaulay, 
which  cannot  easily  be  excused.  He  listened  with  a  too 
indulgent  ear  to  vague  complaints  against  his  son's  car- 
riage and  conversation,  demanding  answers  to  the  anony- 
mous accusations,  in  a  tone  little  calculated  to  inspire  sym- 
pathy. It  says  very  much  for  Macaulay's  sweetness  of 
character,  that  he  was  never  soured  or  estranged  from  his 
father  by  this  injudicious  treatment.  On  the  contrary,  he 
remained  a  loyal  and  dutiful  son,  under  trials,  as  we  shall 
see,  of  no  common  severity. 

In  October,  1818,  he  went  as  a  commoner  to  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge.  Neither  his  taste  nor  his  acquire- 
ments were  fitted  to  win  him  distinction  in  the  special 


8  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

studies  of  the  place.  In  his  boyhood  he  had  shown  a 
transient  liking  for  mathematics ;  but  this  had  given  way 
to  an  intense  repugnance  for  exact  science.  "  I  can 
scarcely  bear,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  his  mother,  "  to  write 
on  mathematics,  or  mathematicians.  Oh  for  words  to  ex- 
press my  abomination  of  that  science,  if  a  name  sacred 
to  the  useful  and  embellishing  arts  may  be  applied  to  the 
perception  and  recollection  of  certain  properties  in  num- 
bers and  figures !  Oh  that  I  had  to  learn  astrology,  de- 
monology,  or  school  divinity !  .  .  .  Oh  to  change  Cam  for 
Isis !"  His  inclination  was  wholly  for  literature.  Unfort- 
unately, according  to  the  regulations  then  in  force,  a  mini- 
mum of  honours  in  mathematics  was  an  indispensable  con- 
dition for  competing  for  the  Chancellor's  medals — the  test 
of  classical  proficiency  before  the  institution  of  the  classi- 
cal tripos.  Macaulay  failed  even  to  obtain  the  lowest 
place  among  the  Junior  Optimes,  and  was,  what  is  called 
in  University  parlance,  "  gulphed."  But  he  won  the  prize 
for  Latin  declamation,  he  twice  gained  the  Chancellor's 
medals  for  English  verse,  and  by  winning  a  Craven  schol- 
arship he  sufficiently  proved  his  classical  attainments. 
Why  he  was  not  sent  to  Oxford,  as  it  seems  he  would 
have  preferred,  does  not  appear.  Probably  religious  scruples 
on  his  father's  part  had  something  to  do  with  the  choice 
of  a  University.  Otherwise,  Oxford  would  have  appeared 
to  offer  obvious  advantages  to  a  young  man  with  his  bent. 
His  disproportionate  partiality  for  the  lighter  sides  of  lit- 
erature met  with  no  corrective  at  Cambridge.  As  he 
could  not  assimilate  the  mathematical  training,  he  practi- 
cally got  very  little.  The  poets,  orators,  and  historians, 
read  with  a  view  chiefly  to  their  language,  formed  a  very 
imperfect  discipline  for  a  mind  in  which  fancy  and  imagi- 
nation rather  needed  the  curb  than  the  spur.  A  course 


L]  CAMBRIDGE.  9 

of  what  at  Oxford  is  technically  called  "  science,"  even  as 
then  understood,  would  have  been  an  invaluable  gymnas- 
tic for  Macaulay,  and  would  have  strengthened  faculties  in 
his  mind,  which  as  a  matter  of  fact  never  received  ade- 
quate culture.  We  shall  have  repeated  occasion  in  subse- 
quent chapters  to  notice  his  want  of  philosophic  grasp, 
his  dread  and  dislike  of  arduous  speculation,  his  deficient 
courage  in  facing  intellectual  problems.  It  is  not  proba- 
ble that  any  education  would  have  made  him  a  deep  and 
vigorous  thinker;  but  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  a  more 
austere  training  would  at  least  have  preserved  him  from 
some  of  the  errors  into  which  he  habitually  fell. 

As  it  was,  not  Cambridge  studies  but  Cambridge  society 
left  a  mark  on  his  mind.  Genial  and  frank,  and  with  an 
unlimited  passion  and  talent  for  talk,  he  made  troops  of 
friends,  and  before  he  left  the  University  had  acquired  a 
reputation  as  one  of  the  best  conversationists  of  the  day. 
He  met  his  equals  in  the  Coleridges,  Hyde  and  Charles 
Villiers,  Romilly,  Praed,  and  in  one  case  his  superior  in 
verbal  dialectics,  Charles  Austin,  of  whom  Mill  in  one 
sentence  has  drawn  such  a  powerful  sketch:  "The  im- 
pression which  he  gave  was  that  of  boundless  strength, 
together  with  talents  which,  combined  with  such  apparent 
force  of  will  and  character,  seemed  capable  of  dominating 
the  world."  Of  their  wit  combats  a  story  is  told,  which 
slightly  savours  of  mythus,  how  at  Bowood  the  two  Can- 
tabs  got  engaged  in  a  discussion  at  breakfast,  and  such 
was  the  splendour  and  copiousness  of  their  talk  that  the 
whole  company  in  the  house,  "  ladies,  artists,  politicians, 
diners-out,"  listened  entranced  till  it  was  time  to  dress  for 
dinner.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  Macaulay  shone  among 
the  brightest  in  the  Union  Debating  Society.  Thus  those 
faculties  which  were  naturally  strong  were  made  stronger, 


10  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

those  which  were  naturally  weak  received  little  or  no 
exercise. 

After  literature,  Macaulay's  strongest  taste  was  for  poli- 
tics. His  father's  house  at  Clapham  was  a  common  meet- 
ing-ground for  politicians  engaged  in  the  agitation  against 
slavery ;  and  when  yet  a  boy  he  had  learned  to  take  an 
interest  in  public  affairs.  In  the  free  atmosphere  of  un- 
dergraduate discussion,  such  an  interest  is  the  last  which 
is  allowed  to  lie  dormant,  and  Macaulay  soon  became  a 
strenuous  politician.  Then  occurred  his  single  change 
of  opinions  throughout  life.  He  went  up  to  Cambridge 
a  Tory ;  Charles  Austin  soon  made  him  a  Whig,  or  some- 
thing more ;  and  before  his  first  year  of  residence  at  Cam- 
bridge was  over,  he  had  to  defend  himself  against  the 
exaggerated  reports  of  some  tale-bearer  who  had  alarmed 
his  parents.  He  protests  that  he  is  not  a  "  son  of  anarchy 
and  confusion,"  as  his  mother  had  been  led  to  believe. 
The  particular  charge  seems  to  have  been  that  he  had 
been  "initiated  into  democratical  societies"  in  the  Uni- 
versity, and  that  he  had  spoken  of  the  so-called  Manches- 
ter massacre  in  terms  of  strong  indignation.  It  would 
have  said  little  for  his  generosity  and  public  spirit  if  he 
had  not. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  now  to  realize  the  condition  of 
England  in  Macaulay's  youth.  Though  so  little  remote 
in  point  of  time,  and  though  still  remembered  by  old  men 
who  are  yet  among  us,  the  state  of  public  affairs  between 
the  peace  of  1815  and  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  was 
so  unlike  anything  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  that  a 
certain  effort  is  required  to  make  it  present  to  the  mind. 
It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  a  state  of  things  in  which  the 
country  was  covered  by  an  army  of  "  common  informers," 
whose  business  it  was  to  denounce  the  non-payment  of 


i.]  CONDITION  OF  ENGLAND.  11 

taxes,  and  share  with  the  fisc  the  onerous  fines  imposed, 
often  without  a  shadow  of  justice — in  which  marauders 
roamed  at  night  under  the  command  of  "  General  Ludd," 
and  terrorized  whole  counties — when  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  was  suspended,  and  "  in  Suffolk,  nightly,  fires  of  in- 
cendiaries began  to  blaze  in  every  district" — when  mobs 
of  labourers  assembled  with  flags  bearing  the  motto 
"Bread  or  Blood,"  and  riots  occurred  in  London,  Not- 
tingham, Leicester,  and  Derby,  culminating  in  the  massacre 
at  Manchester — when  at  last  the  famous  Six  Acts  were 
passed,  which  surrendered  the  liberties  of  Englishmen 
into  the  hands  of  the  Government.  "The  old  spirit  of 
liberty  would  appear  to  have  departed  from  England, 
when  public  meetings  could  not  be  held  without  the 
licence  of  magistrates,  when  private  houses  might  be 
searched  for  arms,  when  a  person  convicted  a  second 
time  of  publishing  a  libel"1 — that  is,  a  criticism  on  the 
Government — "  might  be  transported  beyond  the  seas." 
Macaulay  had  been  a  year  at  College  when  the  Six  Acts 
were  passed  (December,  1819). 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  than  the  way  in 
which  Macaulay  kept  his  head  in  this  semi-revolutionary 
condition  of  public  affairs.  A  man  of  strong  passions 
would,  inevitably,  have  taken  an  extreme  side — either  for 
reaction  or  reform.  Civil  society  seemed  threatened  by 
the  anarchists;  civil  liberty  seemed  equally  threatened 
by  the  Government.  Either  extreme  Tory  or  extreme 
Radical  opinions  would  appear  to  have  been  the  only 
choice  for  an  ardent  young  spirit — and  the  latter  the  more 
suitable  to  the  impetuosity  of  youth  and  genius.  Macaulay 
took  his  stand,  with  the  premature  prudence  and  wisdom 
of  a  veteran,  on  the  judicious  compromise  of  sound  Whig 

1  Knight's  History  of  England,  vol.  viii.  cap.  4. 
B 


12  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

principles.  He  was  zealous  for  reform,  but  never  was 
touched  by  a  breath  of  revolutionary  fervour.  The  grind- 
ing collision  of  old  and  new  principles  of  government 
did  not  set  him  on  fire  either  with  fear  or  with  hope. 
The  menacing  invasions  on  the  old  system  of  Church  and 
State,  which  had  wrecked  the  happiness  of  the  last  years 
of  Burke — which  now  disturbed  the  rest  of  such  men  as 
Southey,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth — filled  him  with  no  dis- 
may. But  he  was  as  little  caught  up  by  visions  of  a  new 
dawn — of  a  future  "  all  the  brighter  that  the  past  was 
base."  In  the  heyday  of  youth  and  spirits  and  talent,  he 
took  his  side  with  the  old  and  practical  Whigs,  who  were 
well  on  their  guard  against  "  too  much  zeal,"  but  who  saw 
their  way  to  such  reforms  as  could  be  realized  in  the  con- 
ditions of  the  time.  He  was  a  Whig  by  necessity  of  nat- 
ure, by  calmness  of  passion,  combined  with  superlative 
common-sense. 

He  did  not  get  a  Fellowship  till  his  third  and  last  trial, 
in  1824.  He  had  then  already  begun  to  make  a  name  in 
literature.  As  a  Junior  Bachelor  he  competed  for  the 
Greaves  historical  prize — "  On  the  Conduct  and  Character 
of  William  the  Third."  The  essay  is  still  in  existence, 
though  only  the  briefest  fragments  of  it  have  been  pub- 
lished, which  are  interesting  on  more  grounds  than  one. 
Not  only  is  the  subject  the  same  as  that  which  occupied 
so  many  years  of  his  later  life,  but  the  style  is  already 
his  famous  style  in  all  essential  features.  There  is  no 
mistaking  this : 

"  Lewis  XIV.  was  not  a  great  general.  He  was  not  a  great  legis- 
lator. But  he  was  in  one  sense  of  the  word  a  great  king.  He  was 
perfect  master  of  all  the  mysteries  of  the  science  of  royalty — of  the 
arts  which  at  once  extend  power  and  conciliate  popularity,  which 
most  advantageously  display  the  merits  and  most  dexterously  con- 
ceal the  deficiencies  of  a  sovereign." 


i.]  EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  13 

This  essay  shows  that  his  style  was  quite  natural,  and 
unaffected.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Macaulay's  style 
by  the  present  race  of  critics,  no  one  will  deny  that  it  was 
original,  and  has  left  a  mark  on  our  literature ;  like  all 
original  styles,  which  give  an  impression  of  novelty  on 
their  first  appearance,  it  was,  we  see,  his  spontaneous 
mode  of  utterance.  The  true  prose  writer,  equally  with 
the  true  poet,  is  born,  not  made. 

More  important  were  his  contributions  to  Knight's 
Quarterly  Magazine.  Spirited  verse,  prose,  fiction,  and 
criticism  on  poets,  were  his  first  efforts  in  literature,  and 
prove  sufficiently,  if  proof  were  wanted,  in  what  direction 
his  calling  lay.  Two  battle-pieces  in  metre,  Ivry  and 
Naseby,  still  live,  by  reason  of  their  vigour  and  animation, 
and  are  little,  if  at  all,  inferior  to  his  later  productions  in 
verse.  The  Fragments  of  a  Roman  Tale,  and  the  Scenes 
from  the  Athenian  Revels,  are  so  sparkling  and  vivacious, 
and  show  such  a  natural  turn  for  a  dialogue  and  dramatic 
mise  en  scene,  that  it  says  a  great  deal  for  Macaulay's  good- 
sense  and  literary  conscientiousness  that  he  remained  con- 
tent with  this  first  success,  and  did  not  continue  to  work 
a  vein  which  would  have  brought  him  prompt,  if  ephem- 
eral, popularity.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  could 
have  equalled,  or  surpassed,  most  historical  novelists  who 
have  written  since  Scott.  But  he  had  too  genuine  a  love 
of  history  not  to  be  conscious  of  the  essential  hollowness 
and  unreality  of  the  historical  novel,  and  he  never  meddled 
with  it  again.  Of  the  two  criticisms  on  Dante  and  Pe- 
trarch, the  first  is  nearly  as  good  as  anything  Macaulay 
ever  wrote  in  that  style  (which,  to  be  sure,  is  not  saying 
much,  as  he  was  almost  incapable  of  analyzing  and  exhib- 
iting the  beauties  in  the  great  creative  works  which  he 

admired  so  much) ;  but  its  generous  enthusiasm  and  zeal 
16 


14  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

for  the  great  Florentine,  and,  indeed,  for  Italian  literature 
generally,  are  really  touching,  and  produce  an  effect  on  the 
mind  not  usually  produced  by  his  criticisms. 

But  by  far  the  most  noteworthy  of  his  contributions 
to  Knight's  Magazine  was  the  Conversation  between  Mr. 
Abraham  Cowley  and  Mr.  John  Milton,  touching  the  great 
Civil  War.  We  are  told  that  it  was  his  own  decided 
favourite  among  his  earlier  efforts  in  literature ;  and  most 
correct  was  his  judgment.  The  introduction  to  the  dia- 
logue, for  simplicity  and  grace,  is  worthy  of  Plato : 

"It  chanced  in  the  warm  and  beautiful  spring  of  the  year  1665, 
a  little  before  the  saddest  summer  that  ever  London  saw,"  begins 
the  narrator,  "  that  I  went  to  the  Bowling  Green  at  Piccadilly, 
whither  at  that  time  the  best  gentry  made  continual  resort.  There 
I  met  Mr.  Cowley,  who  had  lately  left  Barmelms.  ...  I  entreated 
him  to  dine  with  me  at  my  lodging  in  the  Temple,  which  he  most 
courteously  promised.  And  that  so  eminent  a  guest  might  not  lack 
better  entertainment  than  cooks  or  vintners  can  provide,  I  sent  to  the 
house  of  Mr.  John  Milton,  in  the  Artillery  Walk,  to  beg  that  he  would 
also  be  my  guest,  for  I  hoped  that  they  would  think  themselves  rath- 
er united  by  their  common  art  than  divided  by  their  different  fac- 
tions. And  so,  indeed,  it  proved.  For  while  we  sat  at  table  they 
talked  freely  of  men  and  things,  as  well  ancient  as  modern,  with 
much  civility.  Nay,  Mr.  Milton,  who  seldom  tasted  wine,  both  be- 
cause of  his  singular  temperance  and  because  of  his  gout,  did  more 
than  once  pledge  Mr.  Cowley,  who  was  indeed  no  hermit  in  diet.  At 
last,  being  heated,  Mr.  Milton  begged  that  I  would  open  the  windows. 
'  Nay,'  said  I, '  if  you  desire  fresh  air  and  coolness,  what  would  hin- 
der us,  as  the  evening  is  fair,  from  sailing  for  an  hour  on  the  river  ?' 
To  this  they  both  cheerfully  consented;  and  forth  we  walked,  Mr. 
Cowley  and  I  leading  Mr.  Milton  between  us  to  the  Temple  Stairs. 
There  we  took  a  boat,  and  thenoe  we  were  rowed  up  the  river. 

"  The  wind  was  pleasant,  the  evening  fine ;  the  sky,  the  earth, 
and  the  water  beautiful  to  look  upon.  But  Mr.  Cowley  and  I  held 
our  peace,  and  said  nothing  of  the  gay  sights  around  us,  lest  we 
should  too  feelingly  remind  Mr.  Milton  of  his  calamity,  whereof  he 


i.]  COWLEY  AND  MILTON.  16 

needed  no  monitor;  for  soon  he  said,  sadly:  'Ah,  Mr.  Cowley,  you 
are  a  happy  man.  What  would  I  now  give  but  for  one  more  look  at 
the  sun,  and  the  waters,  and  the  gardens  of  this  fair  city  !'  " 

There  is  reason  to  think  that  Macaulay's  splendid  lit- 
erary faculty  was  seriously  damaged  by  his  early  entrance 
into  the  conflict  of  party  politics,  and  that  he  never  wholly 
recovered  from  its  effect.  It  destroyed  the  tender  bloom 
of  his  mind.  As  Mr.  Pattison  has  shown  that  even  Mil- 
ton, when  he  turned  from  Comus  and  Lycidas  to  write 
ferocious  pamphlets  for  twenty  years,  "left  behind  him 
the  golden  age,  and  one-half  of  his  poetic  genius,"1  so  may 
we  say  of  Macaulay,  that  when  he  turned  from  such  work 
as  this  dialogue  to  parliamentary  debate  and  the  distrac* 
tions  of  office,  he  did  an  injury  to  his  prose,  which  is  none 
the  less  great  and  deplorable  because  it  cannot  be  accurate- 
ly measured.  But  let  any  one  read  this  beautiful  piece 
of  majestic  English,  then  any  passage  of  the  History  or 
the  Essays  which  he  may  like  best,  and  say  whether  let- 
ters have  not  lost  far  more  than  politics  have  gained  by 
Macaulay's  entrance  into  Parliament.  The  conduct  of  the 
whole  dialogue  is  masterly.  Both  Milton  and  Cowley 
sustain  their  parts  with  admirable  propriety.  It  is  no 
sham  fight  in  which  one  of  the  interlocutors  is  a  man  of 
straw,  set  up  only  to  be  knocked  down.  The  most  telling 
arguments  on  the  Royalists'  side  are  put  into  Cowley's 
mouth,  and  enunciated  with  a  force  which  cannot  be  sur- 
passed. Above  all,  the  splendour  and  nobility  of  the  dic- 
tion are  such  as  never  visited  Macaulay's  vigils  again. 
The  piece  is  hardly  ever  referred  to,  and  appears  to  be  for- 
gotten. Even  his  most  loyal  biographer  and  kinsman 
waxes  cold  and  doubtful  about  it.  But  it  remains,  and 
will  be  remembered,  as  a  promise  and  pledge  of  literary 
1  Milton,  by  Mark  Pattison,  in  this  series. 


16  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

power  which  adverse  fate  hindered   him  from  fully  re- 
deeming. 

Macaulay's  early  success  in  literature  did  not  improve 
his  relations  with  his  father.  On  the  contrary,  he  appears 
to  have  been  chidden  for  everything  he  wrote.  The 
ground  of  complaint  was  not  far  to  seek :  the  magazine  in 
which  he  wrote  was  a  worldly  periodical,  in  whicb^the 
interests  of  religion  were  neglected  or  offended.  The 
sympathies  of  most  readers  will  be  so  strongly  in  favour 
of  the  son,  that  we  cannot  do  wrong  in  casting  a  look  of 
forlorn  commiseration  on  the  old  Puritan,  who  felt,  with 
an  anguish  perhaps  never  fully  expressed,  the  conviction 
and  the  proof  growing  on  him  that  his  son's  heart  was 
not  as  his  heart,  and  that  they  were  parting  company 
as  regards  the  deepest  subjects  more  and  more.  When 
Macaulay  was  a  lad  at  school  his  father  had  written  to 
him :  "  I  do  long  and  pray  most  earnestly  that  the  orna- 
ment of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit  may  be  substituted  for 
vehemence  and  self-confidence."  The  good  man's  hopes 
and  prayers  had  not  been  realized,  nor  was  his  treatment 
of  his  son  such  that  their  realization  could  be  expected. 
But  the  sense  of  void  and  inner  bereavement  would  be 
none  the  less  bitter  and  strange,  even  if  the  faults  of  treat- 
ment were  perceived  when  it  was  too  late  to  rectify  them, 
and  of  this  feeling  on  the  father's  part  there  is  no  evidence. 
In  any  case,  on  no  occasion  in  life  did  Macaulay  show  the 
generosity  and  tenderness  of  his  nature  more  admirably 
than  in  these  seasons  of  trial  and  failing  sympathy  with 
his  father.  Troubles  without  were  added  to  troubles 
within.  When  he  went  to  Cambridge  his  father  seemed 
in  prosperous  fortune  which  bordered  on  affluence.  It  was 
understood  that  he  was  to  be  "  made  in  a  modest  way  an 
eldest  son."  But  a  great  change  had  come  over  Zachary 


L]  DOMESTIC  TRIALS.  17 

Macaulay's  neglected  business.  The  firm  wanted  a  com- 
petent head.  The  elder  partner  gave  his  mind,  his  time, 
and  his  energy  to  the  agitation  against  the  slave-trade. 
The  junior  partner,  Babington,  was  not  a  man  to  supply 
his  place.  Like  Cobden,  many  years  afterwards,  the  elder 
Macaulay  neglected  his  private  affairs  for  public  interests, 
and  he  quietly  slid  down  the  road  which  leads  to  com- 
mercial ruin.  Then  the  son  showed  the  sterling  stuff  of 
which  he  was  made.  He  received  the  first  ill-news  at 
Cambridge  with  "a  frolick  welcome"  of  courage  and 
filial  devotion.  "  He  was  firmly  prepared,"  he  said,  "  to 
encounter  the  worst  with  fortitude,  and  to  do  his  utmost 
to  retrieve  it  by  exertion."  A  promise  kept  to  the  letter 
and  to  the  spirit.  Not  only  did  he,  with  the  help  of  his 
brother  Henry,  pay  off  ultimately  his  father's  debts,  but 
he  became  a  second  father  to  his  brothers  and  sisters. 

"He  quietly  took  up  the  burden  which  his  father  was  unable  to 
bear;  and  before  many  years  had  elapsed  the  fortunes  of  all  for 
whose  welfare  he  considered  himself  responsible  were  abundantly 
secured.  In  the  course  of  the  efforts  which  he  expended  on  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  result,  he  unlearned  the  very  notion  of  framing 
his  method  of  life  with  a  view  to  his  own  pleasure ;  and  such  wa3 
his  high  and  simple  nature,  that  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  it 
ever  crossed  his  mind  that  to  live  wholly  for  others  was  a  sacrifice 
at  all."1 

This  was  much,  and  inexpressibly  noble ;  but  even  this 
was  not  all.  Not  only  did  Macaulay  not  give  a  thought 
to  his  own  frustrated  hopes  and  prospects;  not  only  did 
he,  a  young  man,  shoulder  the  burden  of  a  family  two 
generations  deep,  but  he  did  it  with  the  sunniest  radiance, 
as  if  not  a  care  rankled  in  his  heart.  His  sister,  Lady 
Trevelyan,  says  that  those  who  did  not  know  him  then 
1  Trevelyan,  vol.  i.  cap.  3. 


18  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

"  never  knew  him  in  his  most  brilliant,  witty,  and  ^fertile 
vein."  He  was  life  and  sunshine  to  young  and  old  in  the 
sombre  house  in  Great  Ormond  Street,  where  the  forlorn 
old  father  like  a  blighted  oak  lingered  on  in  leafless  decay, 
reading  one  long  sermon  to  his  family  on  Sunday  after- 
noons, and  another  long  sermon  on  Sunday  evenings — 
"  where  Sunday  walking  for  walking's  sake  was  never  al- 
lowed, and  even  going  to  a  distant  church  was  discour- 
aged." Through  this  Puritanic  gloom  Macaulay  shot  like 
a  sunbeam,  and  turned  it  into  a  fairy  scene  of  innocent 
laughter  and  mirth.  Against  Macaulay  the  author  severe 
things,  and  as  just  as  severe,  may  be  said ;  but  as  to  his  con- 
duct in  his  own  home — as  a  son,  as  a  brother,  and  an  un- 
cle— it  is  only  the  barest  justice  to  say  that  he  appears  to 
have  touched  the  furthest  verge  of  human  virtue,  sweet- 
ness, and  generosity.  His  thinking  was  often,  if  not  gen- 
erally, pitched  in  what  we  must  call  a  low  key,  but  his 
action  might  put  the  very  saints  to  shame.  He  reversed  a 
practice  too  common  among  men  of  genius,  who  are  often 
careful  to  display  all  their  shining  and  attractive  qualities 
to  the  outside  world,  and  keep  for  home  consumption  their 
meanness,  selfishness,  and  ill-temper.  Macaulay  struck  no 
heroic  attitude  of  benevolence,  magnanimity,  and  aspira- 
tion before  the  world — rather  the  opposite;  but  in  the 
circle  of  his  home  affections  he  practised  those  virtues 
without  letting  his  right  hand  know  what  was  done  by 
his  left. 

He  was  called  to  the  Bar  in  1826,  and  went  more  than 
once  on  the  Northern  Circuit.  But  he  did  not  take  kindly 
to  the  law,  got  little  or  no  practice,  and  soon  renounced 
all  serious  thoughts  of  the  legal  profession,  even  if  he  ever 
entertained  any.  He  had,  indeed,  in  the  mean  time  found 
something  a  great  deal  better  to  do.  In  October,  1824, 


I.]  ENTERS  PARLIAMENT.  19 

writing  to  his  father,  he  said :  "  When  I  see  you  in  London 
I  will  mention  to  you  a  piece  of  secret  history,"  which  he 
conceals  for  the  moment.  This  referred  to  an  invitation 
to  write  for  the  Edinburgh  Review  ;  and  in  the  following 
August,  1825,  appeared  an  article  on  Milton,  which  at  once 
arrested  the  attention  of  the  public,  and  convinced  the 
shrewder  judges  that  a  new  force  had  arisen  in  literature. 
The  success  was  splendid  and  decisive,  and  produced  a 
great  peal  of  fame.  He  followed  it  up  with  rapid  energy, 
and  with  his  single  hand  gave  a  new  life  to  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  He  was  already  distinguished  even  in  the  select 
circle  of  promising  young  men.  In  1828  Lord  Lyndhurst 
made  him  a  Commissioner  of  Bankruptcy.  In  1830  his 
articles  on  Mill  had  so  struck  Lord  Lansdowne  that  he 
offered  him,  though  quite  a  stranger,  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment for  the  borough  of  Calne. 

He  was  now  thirty  years  old.  He  was  a  finished 
classical  scholar,  and  a  master  of  English  and  Italian  liter- 
ature. French  literature  he,  no  doubt,  knew  well,  but  not 
with  the  same  intimacy  and  sympathy.  Of  English  his- 
tory he  already  possessed  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  with  rare  accuracy  and  grasp.  And  of  all  his- 
tory, ancient  or  modern,  he  probably  had  a  competent 
command.  On  the  other  hand,  his  want  of  philosophical 
training  does  not  appear  to  have  been  corrected  by  subse- 
quent studies  of  a  severer  kind.  All  higher  speculation 
seems  to  have  been  antipathetic  to  him.  He  spoke  with 
respect  of  Bentharn,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever 
assimilated  Bentham's  doctrines.  He  admired  Coleridge's 
poetry,  but  he  did  not  meddle  with  his  philosophy — which 
certainly  was  not  very  much,  but  still  it  was  the  best  rep- 
resentative of  speculative  thought  in  England,  and  full  of 
attraction  to  ardent  young  minds.  In  after-years,  when 
2 


20  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

Macaulay  ventured  to  handle  religious  and  philosophical 
subjects  of  a  certain  depth,  this  defect  in  his  education 
made  itself  felt  very  plainly.  But  for  the  present,  and  for 
some  time  after,  it  was  not  perceived.  He  was  abundant- 
ly well  prepared  by  natural  acuteness  and  wide  reading  to 
make  more  than  a  creditable  figure  amid  the  loose  talk 
and  looser  thinking  which  are  the  ordinary  staple  of  poli- 
tics, and  to  politics  he  had  now  come  in  earnest. 

Entering  Parliament  a  few  months  before  the  death  of 
George  IV.,  he  was  just  in  time  to  witness  the  great  bat- 
tle of  Reform  fought  out  from  beginning  to  end  ;  to  take, 
indeed,  a  conspicuous  and  honourable  share  in  the  cam- 
paign and  final  victory.  His  first  speech  on  the  Reform 
Bill  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  orators,  if  not  of  de- 
baters. The  Speaker  sent  for  him,  and  "  told  him  that  in 
all  his  prolonged  experience  he  had  never  seen  the  House 
in  such  a  state  of  excitement."1  Sir  Robert  Peel  paid 
him  a  most  handsome  compliment ;  and  another  member 
was  heard  to  say  that  he  had  not  heard  such  speaking 
since  Fox.  There  can,  indeed,  be  no  doubt  about  the  im- 
pressiveness  and  weight  of  Macaulay's  speaking.  "  When- 
ever he  rose  to  speak,"  says  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  sat  with 
him  in  Parliament  nearly  from  the  first,  "  it  was  a  sum- 
mons like  a  trumpet-call  to  fill  the  benches."  It  may  well 
be  questioned  whether  Macaulay  was  so  well  endowed  for 
any  career  as  that  of  a  great  orator.  The  rapidity  of 
speech  suited  the  impetuosity  of  his  genius  far  better  than 
the  slow  labour  of  composition.  He  has  the  true  Demos- 
thenic rush  in  which  argument  becomes  incandescent  with 
passion.  To  read  his  speeches  by  themselves,  isolated 
from  the  debate  in  which  they  were  delivered,  is  to  do 
them  injustice.  It  is  only  when  we  read  them  in  Hansard 
1  Trevdyan,  vol.  i.  cap.  4. 


I.]  SPEECH  ON  KEFORM.  21 

or  other  contemporary  reports  that  we  see  how  far  higher 
was  their  plane  of  thought  than  that  of  the  best  speaking 
to  which  they  were  opposed,  or  even  to  that  on  his  own 
side.  It  is  not  going  too  far  to  say  that  he  places  the 
question  on  loftier  grounds  of  state  policy  than  any  of  his 
colleagues.  In  his  fourth  speech  on  the  Reform  Bill, 
brushing  away  with  disdain  the  minuter  sophistries  and 
special  pleading  of  his  opponents,  he  tells  them  that  the 
Bill  must  be  carried  or  the  country  will  be  ruined — that 
it  will  be  carried,  whatever  they  do,  but  carried  by  revolu- 
tion and  civil  war.  "  You  may  make  the  change  tedious, 
you  may  make  it  violent,  you  may — God  in  his  mercy 
forbid — you  may  make  it  bloody,  but  avert  it  you  can- 
not." Even  if  it  were  a  bad  bill,  it  should  be  passed,  as 
the  less  of  two  evils,  compared  to  withholding  it.  Then 
he  throws  those  harpoons  of  pointed  epigram,  which  are 
rarely  at  the  command  of  orators  who  are  not  also  writers, 
and  which  are  as  wise  and  true  as  they  are  sharp : 

"  What,  then,  it  is  said,  would  you  legislate  in  haste  ?  Would  you 
legislate  in  times  of  great  excitement  concerning  matters  of  such 
deep  concern  ?  Yes,  Sir,  I  would ;  and  if  any  bad  consequences 
should  follow  from  the  haste  and  excitement,  let  those  be  answera- 
ble who,  when  there  was  no  need  of  haste,  when  there  existed  no 
excitement,  refused  to  listen  to  any  project  of  reform ;  nay,  made  it 
an  argument  against  reform  that  the  public  mind  was  not  excited. . . . 
I  allow  that  hasty  legislation  is  an  evil.  But  reformers  are  compelled 
to  legislate  fast,  just  because  bigots  will  not  legislate  early.  Reformers 
are  compelled  to  legislate  in  times  of  excitement,  because  bigots  will 
not  legislate  in  times  of  tranquillity." 

Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  impression  made  by 
this  magnificent  speech  than  the  pains  taken  by  the  Op- 
position to  answer  it.  Croker,  who  rose  immediately  after 
Macaulay  sat  down,  devoted  a  two  hours'  speech  exclusive- 


22  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

ly  to  answering  him  ;  and  Croker  was  one  of  the  ablest 
debaters  of  his  party.  All  the  best  men  on  that  side  fol- 
lowed the  same  line,  feeling  that  Macaulay  was  really  the 
formidable  man.  Sir  Robert  Inglis,  Sir  Charles  Wether- 
ell,  Praed,  and,  finally,  the  Ajax  of  the  Tories,  Sir  Robert 
Peel  himself,  singled  out  the  "  honourable  and  learned 
member "  for  Calne  as  the  f oeman  most  worthy  of  their 
steel.  No  compliment  could  surpass  this. 

From  the  time  he  entered  Parliament  till  nearly  four 
years  afterwards,  when  he  sailed  for  India,  Macaulay's 
life  was  one  of  strenuous  and  incessant  labour,  such  as 
has  been  hardly  ever  surpassed  in  the  lives  of  the  busiest 
men.  Besides  his  Parliamentary  duties  he  had  official 
work — first  as  Commissioner,  and  then  as  Secretary  to  the 
Board  of  Control ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  frequent 
indisposition  of  his  chief,  Mr.  Charles  Grant,  the  whole 
labour  of  the  office  often  devolved  upon  him.  He  was 
one  of  the  lions  of  London  Society,  and  a  constant  guest 
at  Holland  House  —  the  imperious  mistress  of  which 
scolded,  flattered,  and  caressed  him  with  a  patronizing 
condescension  that  would  not  have  been  to  every  per- 
son's taste.  He  was  on  intimate  terms  with  Rogers, 
Moore,  Campbell,  Luttrel,  and  the  other  wits  of  the  day, 
and  he  more  than  held  his  own  as  a  talker  and  a  wit. 
And  all  this  time  he  was  writing  those  articles  for  the 
Edinburgh  Review  which,  perhaps,  are  often  unwittingly 
assumed  to  have  been  his  main  occupation.  They  were, 
in  truth,  struck  off  in  hastily  snatched  moments  of  leisure, 
saved  with  a  miserly  thrift  from  public  and  official  work, 
by  rising  at  five  and  writing  till  breakfast.  Thirteen 
articles,  from  the  Essay  on  Robert  Montgomery  to  the 
first  Essay  on  Lord  Chatham,  inclusive,  were  written 
amidst  these  adverse  conditions.  We  are  bound  in  com- 


I.]  CAPACITY  FOR  WORK.  2ft 

mon  equity  to  remember  this  fact,  when  inclined  to  find 
fault  with  either  the  matter  or  the  manner  of  Macaulay's 
Essays.  They  were  not  the  meditated  compositions  of  a 
student  wooing  his  muse  in  solitude  and  repose,  crooning 
over  his  style  and  maturing  his  thought;  but  the  rapid 
effusions  of  a  man  immersed  in  business,  contesting  popu- 
lous boroughs,  sitting  up  half  the  night  in  Parliament, 
passing  estimates  connected  with  his  office,  and  making 
speeches  on  la  haute  politique  to  the  Commons  of  Eng- 
land. Mr.  Gladstone,  who  remembers  the  splendour  of 
his  early  fame,  does  justice  to  the  "  immense  distinction  " 
which  Macaulay  had  attained  long  before  middle  life,  and 
justly  remarks  that,  except  the  second  Pitt  and  Lord 
Byron,  no  Englishman  had  ever  won,  at  so  early  an  age, 
such  wide  and  honourable  renown. 

And  behind  this  renown,  unknown  to  the  world,  but 
more  honourable  than  the  renown  itself,  were  facts  which 
must  for  ever  embalm  Macaulay's  memory  with  a  fragrance 
of  lofty  and  unselfish  virtue.  The  Whig  Government,  bent 
on  economy,  brought  in  a  bill  to  reform  the  Bankruptcy 
jurisdiction.  He  voted  for  the  measure,  though  it  sup- 
pressed his  Commissionership,  and  left  him  penniless ;  for 
at  about  the  time  his  Trinity  Fellowship  also  expired.  He 
was  reduced  to  such  straits  that  he  was  forced  to  sell  the 
gold  medals  he  had  won  at  Cambridge ;  and,  as  he  said 
at  a  later  date,  he  did  not  know  where  to  turn  for  a  morsel 
of  bread.  This  did  not  last  long,  and  his  appointment  to 
the  Board  of  Control  placed  him  in  relative  comfort.  But 
presently  a  new  difficulty  arose.  The  Government  intro- 
duced their  Slavery  Bill ;  which,  though  a  liberal  proposal, 
did  not  satisfy  the  fanatics  of  the  abolitionist  party,  among 
whom  Zachary  Macaulay  stood  in  the  first  rank.  His  son 
made  up  his  mind  in  a  moment.  He  declared  to  his 


24  MACAULAY.  [CHAP: 

colleagues  and  his  chiefs  that  he  could  not  go  counter 
to  his  father.  "  He  has  devoted  his  whole  life  to  the 
question ;  and  I  cannot  grieve  him  by  giving  way,  when 
he  wishes  me  to  stand  firm."  He  placed  his  resignation 
in  the  hands  of  Lord  Althorp,  and  freely  criticized  as  an 
independent  member  the  measure  of  his  own  Govern- 
ment. He  told  his  leader  that  he  did  not  expect  such 
insubordination  to  be  overlooked;  and  that  if  he  were  a 
Minister  he  would  not  allow  it.  Such  noble  independence 
had  its  reward.  He  wrote  to  his  sister  Hannah  :  "  I  have 
resigned  my  office,  and  my  resignation  has  been  refused. 
I  have  spoken  and  voted  against  the  Ministry  under  which 
I  hold  my  place.  ...  I  am  as  good  friends  with  the  Min- 
isters as  ever."  Well  might  Sydney  Smith  say  that 
Macaulay  was  incorruptible. 

Still,  the  res  angusta  domi  was  pressing  hard  upon,  not 
so  much  himself  as  his  family,  of  which  he  was  now  the 
main  support.  With  his  official  salary,  and  with  what 
he  earned  by  writing  for  the  Edinburgh — which,  by  the 
way,  never  seems  to  have  exceeded  two  hundred  pounds 
per  annum  —  he  was  beyond  the  pressure  of  immediate 
want.  If  he  had  been  out  of  office  and  at  leisure,  he,  no 
doubt,  would  have  gained  far  more  by  his  pen.  But,  as  he 
pointedly  put  it,  he  was  resolved  to  write  only  because  his 
mind  was  full — not  because  his  pockets  were  empty.  He 
accepted  the  post  of  legal  adviser  to  the  Supreme  Council 
of  India,  from  which  he  was  sure  to  return  with  some 
twenty  thousand  pounds,  saved  out  of  his  salary.  In  his 
position  it  is  difficult,  even  judging  after  the  event,  to  say 
that  he  could  have  acted  more  wisely  and  prudently  than 
he  did.  But  the  sacrifice  was  great  —  and  probably  he 
knew  it  as  well  as  any  one,  though,  with  his  usual  cheery 
stoicism,  he  said  nothing  about  it.  The  exile  from  Eng- 


I.]  SAILS  FOR  INDIA.  25 

land,  and  even  removal  from  English  politics,  were  prob- 
ably a  gain.  But  the  postponement  of  his  monumen- 
tal work  in  literature  was  a  serious  misfortune.  The 
precious  hours  of  health  and  vigour  were  speeding  away, 
and  the  great  work  was  not  begun,  nor  near  beginning. 
He  sailed  for  Madras,  February  15,  1834. 

He  spent  the  time  during  his  voyage  in  a  very  charac- 
teristic manner — by  reading  all  the  way.  "Except  at 
meals,"  he  said,  "  I  hardly  exchanged  a  word  with  any 
human  being.  I  devoured  Greek,  Latin,  Spanish,  Italian, 
French,  and  English  ;  folios,  quartos,  octavos,  duodecimos." 
He  always  had  an  immoderate  passion  for  reading,  on 
which  he  never  seems  to  have  thought  of  putting  the 
slightest  restraint.  When  in  India  he  writes  to  his  sister, 
Mrs.  Cropper,  saying  that  he  would  like  nothing  so  well  as 
to  "bury  himself  in  some  great  library,  and  never  pass  a 
waking  hour  without  a  book  before  him.  And  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  except  when  engaged  in  business  or  composi- 
tion, this  seems  to  have  been  what  he  actually  did.  He 
walked  about  London,  reading;  he  roamed  through  the 
lanes  of  Surrey,  reading ;  and  even  the  new  and  surprising 
spectacle  of  the  sea — so  suggestive  of  reverie  and  brood- 
ing thought — could  not  seduce  him  from  his  books.  His 
appetite  was  so  keen  as  to  be  almost  undiscriminating. 
He  was  constantly  reading  worthless  novels  which  he  de- 
spised. Once  he  is  shocked  himself,  and  exclaims  in  his 
diary  :  "  Why  do  I  read  such  trash  ?"  One  would  almost 
say  that  his  mind  was  naturally  vacant  when  left  to  itself, 
and  needed  the  thoughts  of  others  to  fill  up  the  void. 
How  otherwise  are  we  to  account  for  the  following  ex- 
traordinary statement,  under  his  own  hand  ?  He  was  on  a 
journey  to  Ireland : 


26  MACAULAY.  [CHAK 

"I  read  between  London  and  Bangor  the  lives  of  the  emperors 
from  Maximin  to  Carinus,  inclusive,  in  the  Augustan  history.  .  .  . 
We  sailed  as  soon  as  we  got  on  board.  I  put  on  my  great-coat  and 
sat  on  deck  during  the  whole  voyage.  As  I  could  not  read,  I  used 
an  excellent  substitute  for  reading.  I  went  through  Paradise  Lost 
in  my  head.  I  could  still  repeat  half  of  it,  and  that  the  best  half." 

The  complaint  is  that  Macaulay's  writings  lack  medita- 
tion and  thoughtfulness.  Can  it  be  wondered  at,  when 
we  see  the  way  in  which  he  passed  his  leisure  hours  ?  One 
would  have  supposed  that  an  historian  and  statesman,  sail- 
ing for  Ireland  in  the  night  on  that  Irish  sea,  would  have 
been  visited  by  thoughts  too  full  and  bitter  and  mournful 
to  have  left  him  any  taste  even  for  the  splendours  of  Mil- 
ton's verse.  He  was  about  to  write  on  Ireland  and  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne ;  and  he  had  got  up  the  subject  with 
his  usual  care  before  starting.  Is  it  not  next  to  incredi- 
ble that  he  could  have  thought  of  anything  else  than  that 
pathetic,  miserable,  humiliating  story  of  the  connexion  be- 
tween the  two  islands?  And  he  knew  that  story  better 
than  most  men.  Yet  it  did  not  kindle  his  mind  on  such 
an  occasion  as  this.  There  was  a  defect  of  deep  sensi- 
bility in  Macaulay — a  want  of  moral  draught  and  earnest- 
ness, which  is  characteristic  of  his  writing  and  thinking. 
His  acute  intellect  and  nimble  fancy  are  not  paired  with 
an  emotional  endowment  of  corresponding  weight  and 
volume.  His  endless  and  aimless  reading  was  the  effect, 
not  the  cause,  of  this  disposition.  While  in  India  he 
read  more  classics  in  one  year  than  a  Cambridge  under- 
graduate who  was  preparing  to  compete  for  the  Chan- 
cellor's medals.1  But  this  incessant  reading  was  directed 

1  "  I  have  cast  up  my  reading  account,  and  brought  it  to  the  end 
of  1836.  It  includes  December,  1834.  During  the  last  thirteen 
months  I  have  read  ^Eschylus  twice,  Sophocles  twice,  Euripides  onc«, 


L]  EXCESSIVE  READING.  27 

by  no  aim,  to  no  purpose — was  prompted  by  no  idea  on 
which  he  wished  to  throw  light,  no  thoughtful  conception 
which  needed  to  be  verified  and  tested.  Macaulay's  om- 
nivorous reading  is  often  referred  to  as  if  it  were  a  title 
to  honour ;  it  was  far  more  of  the  nature  of  a  defect.  It 
is,  by-the-way,  a  curious  circumstance,  that  while  on  the 
one  hand  we  are  always  told  of  his  extraordinary  mem- 
ory, insomuch  that  he  only  needed  to  read  a  passage  even 
once  casually  for  it  to  be  impressed  on  his  mind  for  ever 
afterwards,  on  the  other  we  find  that  he  read  the  same 
books  over  and  over  again,  and  that  at  very  short  intervals. 
In  the  reading  account  just  given  we  see  that  he  read 
several  authors  twice  in  one  year.  But  I  happen  to  pos- 
sess a  copy  of  Lysias,  which  belonged  to  him,  which  shows 
that  he  carried  the  practice  much  further.  He  had  the 
excellent  habit  of  marking  in  pencil  the  date  of  his  last 
perusal  of  an  author,  and  in  the  book  referred  to  it  ap- 
pears that  he  read  the  speech  Pro  Caede  Eratosthenis 
three  times  within  a  year,  and  five  times  altogether;  and 
with  most  of  the  speeches  it  was  the  same,  though  that 
one  appears  to  have  been  his  favourite.  In  September 
and  October,  1837,  he  appears  to  have  read  all  Lysias 
through  twice  over.  Now,  what  could  be  the  meaning 
or  the  motive  of  these  repeated  perusals  ?  In  the  case  of 

Pindar  twice,  Callimachus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Quintus  Calaber,  The- 
ocritus twice,  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  almost  all  Xenophon's  works, 
almost  all  Plato,  Aristotle's  Politics,  and  a  good  deal  of  his  Organon, 
besides  dipping  elsewhere  in  him;  the  whole  of  Plutarch's  Lives, 
about  half  of  Lucian,  two  or  three  books  of  Athenaeus,  Plautus  twice, 
Terence  twice,  Lucretius  twice,  Catullus,  Tibullus,  Propertius,  Lucan, 
Statius,  Silius  Italicus,  Livy,  Velleius  Paterculus,  Sallust,  Caesar,  and 
lastly  Cicero.  I  have,  indeed,  still  a  little  of  Cicero  left,  but  I  shall 
finish  him  in  a  few  days.  I  am  now  deep  in  Aristophanes  and 
Lucian." 

C      2* 


28  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

a  man  with  a  wretched  memory,  who  was  about  to  under- 
go an  examination,  we  could  understand  them.  But  Ma- 
caulay's  memory  bordered  on  the  miraculous,  and  he  only 
read  to  please  himself.  It  seems  very  strange  that  a  se- 
rious man  should  thus  dispose  of  his  spare  moments. 
How  dry  the  inward  spring  of  meditation  must  have 
been  to  remotely  allow  of  such  an  employment  of  time ! 
That  a  finished  scholar,  however  busy,  should  now  and 
then  solace  himself  with  a  Greek  play  or  a  few  books  of 
Homer,  would  only  show  that  he  had  kept  open  the  win- 
dows of  his  mind,  and  had  not  succumbed  to  the  dusty 
drudgery  of  life.  But  this  was  not  Macaulay's  case. 
He  read  with  the  ardour  of  a  professor  compiling  a  lexi- 
con, without  a  professor's  object  or  valid  motive.  He 
wanted  a  due  sense  of  the  relative  importance  of  books 
and  studies. 

It  behooves  a  critic  to  be  cautious  in  finding  fault  with 
Macaulay,  as  generally  he  will  discover  that,  before  he  has 
done  blaming  him  for  one  thing,  he  has  to  begin  praising 
him  warmly  for  another.  His  career  in  India  is  an  in- 
stance in  point.  However  excessive  his  taste  for  reading 
may  have  been,  he  never  allowed  that  or  any  other  pri- 
vate inclination  to  interfere  with  the  practical  work  which 
lay  before  him.  In  Calcutta,  as  in  London,  he  showed 
the  same  power  of  strenuous,  unremitting  labour,  which 
never  seemed  to  know  satiety  or  fatigue.  Besides  his 
official  duties  as  Member  of  Council,  he  at  once  assumed, 
voluntarily  and  gratuitously,  an  enormous  addition  to  his 
burden  of  work  by  beciming  chairman  of  two  important 
committees:  the  Committee  of  Public  Instruction  and 
the  committee  appointed  to  draw  up  the  new  codes — the 
Penal  Code  and  the  Code  of  Criminal  Procedure.  He 
rarely  failed  to  arrogate  to  himself  the  lion's  share  of 


i.]  INDIAN  PENAL  CODE.  29 

any  hard  work  within  his  reach.  But  on  this  occasion, 
owing  to  the  frequent  illness  of  his  colleagues,  he  had  at 
times  to  undertake  the  greater  part  of  the  task  himself. 
The  Penal  Code  and  the  notes  appended  to  it  are,  per- 
haps, one  of  his  most  durable  titles  to  fame.  On  such  a 
subject  I  can  have  no  opinion ;  but  this  is  the  way  in 
which  Mr.  Justice  Stephen  speaks  of  it : 

"Lord  Macaulay's  great  work  was  too  daring  and  original  to  be 
accepted  at  once.  It  was  a  draft  when  he  left  India  in  1838.  The 
draft  .  .  .  and  the  revision  (by  Sir  Barnes  Peacock)  are  both  eminent- 
ly creditable  to  their  authors,  and  the  result  of  their  successive  ef- 
forts has  been  to  reproduce  in  a  concise  and  even  beautiful  form  the 
spirit  of  the  law  of  England.  .  .  .  The  point  which  always  has  sur- 
prised me  most  in  connexion  with  the  Penal  Code  is,  that  it  proves 
that  Lord  Macaulay  must  have  had  a  knowledge  of  English  criminal 
law  which,  considering  how  little  he  had  practised  it,  may  fairly  be 
called  extraordinary.  He  must  have  possessed  the  gift  of  going  at 
once  to  the  very  root  of  the  matter,  and  of  sifting  the  corn  from  the 
chaff,  to  a  most  unusual  degree,  for  his  draft  gives  the  substance  of 
the  criminal  law  of  England,  down  to  its  minute  working  details,  in 
a  compass  which  by  comparison  with  the  original  may  be  regarded 
as  almost  ludicrously  small.  The  Indian  Penal  Code  is  to  the  Eng- 
lish criminal  law  what  a  manufactured  article  ready  for  use  is  to  the 
materials  out  of  which  it  is  made.  It  is  to  the  French  Code  Penal, 
and  I  may  add  the  North  German  Code  of  1871,  what  a  finished  pict- 
ure is  to  a  sketch.  It  is  far  simpler  and  much  better  expressed  than 
Livingstone's  Code  of  Louisiana,  and  its  practical  success  has  been 
complete.  The  clearest  proof  of  this  is,  that  hardly  any  questions 
have  arisen  upon  it  which  have  had  to  be  determined  by  the  Courts, 
and  that  few  and  slight  amendments  have  had  to  be  made  by  the 
Legislature."1 

1   Trevelyan,  vol.  i.  cap.  6.     Macaulay's  labours  on  the  Penal  Code, 

the  value  of  which  no  one  disputes,  are  sometimes  spoken  of  in  a 

way  which  involves  considerable  injustice  to  his  fellow-commissioners, 

whose  important  share  in  the  work  is  tacitly  ignored.     The  Penal 

J.7 


30  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

On  the  Education  Committee  he  rendered,  perhaps, 
equal  service,  though  it  may  not  be  so  generally  known. 
The  members  of  the  Board  were  evenly  divided  as  to  the 
character  of  the  instruction  to  be  given  to  the  natives. 
Five  were  for  continuing  the  old  encouragement  of  Orien- 
tal learning,  and  five  for  the  introduction  of  English  liter- 
ature and  European  science.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
say  into  which  scale  Macaulay  threw  his  influence.  The 
opinion  of  the  Government  was  determined  by  an  elaborate 
minute  which  he  drew  up  on  the  subject,  and  Lord  Wil- 
liam Bentinck  decided  that  "  the  great  object  of  the  British 
Government  ought  to  be  the  promotion  of  European  liter- 
ature and  science  among  the  natives  of  India." 

Macaulay  was  very  unpopular  with  a  portion  of  the 
English  residents  in  Calcutta,  chiefly,  it  would  seem,  in 
consequence  of  a  useful  reform  which  he  helped  to  intro- 
duce, affecting  the  jurisdiction  of  the  provincial  courts  of 

Code,  together  with  the  Report  and  Notes,  are  often  referred  to  as  if 
they  were  Macaulay's  exclusive  work.  For  this  assumption  there  is 
no  ground,  and  Macaulay  himself  never  laid  claim  to  anything  of  the 
kind.  When  the  illness  of  his  colleagues  deprived  him  temporarily 
of  their  assistance  he  naturally  mentioned  the  fact  in  his  familiar 
correspondence ;  but  this  does  not  justify  the  conclusion  that  he  did 
all  the  work  himself.  Serious  as  were  the  interruptions  caused  by 
the  illness  of  the  other  commissioners,  they  were  the  exceptions,  not 
the  rule.  Before  the  rainy  season  of  the  year  1836  the  Commission 
had  been  in  full  work  for  a  whole  year,  and  nothing  is  said  as  to 
sickness  during  all  that  time.  Moreover,  even  when  suffering  from 
bad  health,  Sir  John  Macleod  maintained  on  the  subject  of  their  joint 
labours  daily  communication  with  Macaulay,  who  submitted  all  he 
wrote  to  the  criticism  of  his  friend,  and  repeated  modifications  of  the 
first  draft  were  the  result.  This  being  so,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  the 
equity  of  calling  the  Penal  Code  "  Macaulay's  great  work,"  as  Sir 
James  Stephen  does,  or  why  the  Report  and  Notes  should  appear  in 
the  Library  edition  of  Macaulay's  writings. 


i.]  UNDESERVED  ATTACKS.  31 

Bengal.  The  change  appears  to  have  been  a  wise  one, 
and  generally  accepted  as  such.  But  it  was  unfavourable 
to  certain  interests  in  the  capital,  and  these  attacked 
Macaulay  in  the  Press  with  the  most  scurrilous  and  in- 
decent virulence.  The  foulness  of  the  abuse  was  such 
that  he  could  not  allow  the  papers  to  lie  in  his  sister's 
drawing-room.  Cheat,  swindler,  charlatan,  and  tyrant 
were  only  the  milder  epithets  with  which  he  was  assailed, 
and  a  suggestion  to  lynch  him  made  at  a  public  meeting 
was  received  with  rapturous  applause.  He  bore  this  dis- 
graceful vituperation  with  the  most  unruffled  equanimity. 
He  did  more :  he  vigorously  advocated  and  supported  the 
freedom  of  the  Press  at  the  very  moment  when  it  was  at- 
tacking him  with  the  most  rancorous  invective.  Macaulay 
had  in  him  a  vein  of  genuine  magnanimity. 

His  period  of  exile  in  India  drew  to  its  close  at  the  end 
of  the  year  1837.  In  the  midst  of  his  official  work  and 
multifarious  reading  he  had  written  two  articles  for  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  one  on  Mackintosh's  History  of  the 
Revolution ;  the  other  his  rather  too  famous  Essay  on 
Bacon.  He  made  his  plans  for  learning  German  on  the 
voyage  home.  "  People  tell  me  that  it  is  a  hard  language," 
he  wrote  to  his  friend  Ellis,  "but  I  cannot  easily  believe 
that  there  is  a  language  which  I  cannot  master  in  four 
months  by  working  ten  hours  a  day."  He  did  learn 
German  in  the  time  prescribed ;  but,  except  to  read 
Goethe  and  Schiller  and  parts  of  Lessing,  he  never  seems 
to  have  made  much  use  of  it.  However,  his  object  in 
going  to  India  was  now  attained.  He  had  realized  a 
modest  fortune,  but  ample  for  his  simple  wants  and  tastes. 
After  an  unusually  long  voyage  he  reached  England  in 
the  middle  of  the  year  1838.  His  father  had  died  while 
he  was  on  the  ocean. 


32  MACAULAY.  [OHAP. 

Within  a  few  weeks  he  had  contributed  to  the  Edin- 
burgh Review  one  of  the  best  of  his  essays,  that  on  Sir 
William  Temple.  In  October  he  left  England  for  a  tour 
in  Italy. 

The  first  visit  to  Italy  is  always  an  epoch  in  the  life  of 
a  cultivated  mind.  Probably  few  pilgrims  to  the  classic 
land  were  ever  better  prepared  than  Macaulay  by  reading 
and  turn  of  thought  to  receive  the  unique  impressions  of 
such  a  journey.  He  was  equally  capable  of  appreciating 
both  the  antiquities,  the  Pagan  and  the  Christian,  of  which 
Italy  is  the  guardian.  Fortunately,  he  kept  a  journal  of 
his  travels,  from  which  a  few  extracts  have  been  published. 
They  show  Macaulay  in  his  most  attractive  and  engaging 
mood.  A  want  of  reverence  for  the  men  of  genius  of 
past  ages  is  not  one  of  the  sins  which  lie  at  his  door. 
On  the  contrary,  after  family  affection  it  was  perhaps  the 
strongest  emotion  of  his  mind.  He  now  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  indulging  it  such  as  he  had  never  had  before. 
Here  are  a  few  extracts  from  his  journal : 

"  Florence,  November  9,  1838. — To  the  Church  of  Santa  Croce — 
an  ugly,  mean  outside,  and  not  much  to  admire  in  the  architecture 
within "  (shade  of  Mr.  Ruskin !), "  but  consecrated  by  the  dust  of 
some  of  the  greatest  men  that  ever  lived.  It  was  to  me  what  a  first 
visit  to  Westminster  Abbey  would  be  to  an  American.  The  first 
tomb  that  caught  my  eye  as  I  entered  was  that  of  Michael  Angelo. 
I  was  much  moved,  and  still  more  so  when,  going  forward,  I  saw  the 
stately  monument  lately  erected  to  Dante.  The  figure  of  the  poet 
geemed  to  me  fine,  and  finely  placed,  and  the  inscription  very  happy 
— his  own  words — the  proclamation  which  resounds  through  the 
shades  when  Virgil  returns : 

*  Onorate  Paltissimo  poeta.' 

The  two  allegorical  figures  were  not  much  to  my  taste.  It  is  partic- 
ularly absurd  to  represent  Poetry  weeping  for  Dante.  .  .  .  Yet  I  was 
very  near  shedding  tears  of  a  different  kind  as  I  looked  at  this  mag- 


i.J  ROME.  33 

nificent  monument,  and  thought  of  the  sufferings  of  the  great  p«et, 
and  of  his  incomparable  genius,  and  of  all  the  pleasure  which  I  have 
derived  from  him,  and  of  his  death  in  exile,  and  of  the  late  justice 
of  posterity.  I  believe  that  very  few  people  have  ever  had  their 
minds  more  thoroughly  penetrated  with  the  spirit  of  any  great  work 
than  mine  is  with  that  of  the  Divine  Comedy.  His  execution  I  take 
to  be  far  beyond  that  of  any  other  artist  who  has  operated  on  the 
imagination  by  means  of  words — 

*  0  degli  altri  poeti  onore  e  lume, 
Vagliami  il  lungo  studio  e  '1  grande  amore 
Che  m'  ban  fatto  cercar  lo  tuo  volume.' 

I  was  proud  to  think  that  I  had  a  right  to  apostrophize  him  thus.  I 
went  on,  and  next  I  came  to  the  tomb  of  Alfieri.  I  passed  forward, 
and  hi  another  minute  my  foot  was  on  the  grave  of  Machiavel." 

At  Rome  he  is  almost  overpowered. 

"November  18. — On  arriving  this  morning  I  walked  straight  from 
the  hotel  door  to  St.  Peter's.  I  was  so  excited  by  the  expectation 
of  what  I  was  to  see  that  I  could  notice  nothing  else.  I  was  quite 
nervous.  The  colonnade  in  front  is  noble — very,  very  noble ;  yet  it 
disappointed  me,  and  would  have  done  so  had  it  been  the  portico  of 
Paradise.  In  I  went.  I  was  for  a  minute  fairly  stunned  by  the 
magnificence  and  harmony  of  the  interior.  I  never  in  my  life  saw, 
and  never,  I  suppose,  shall  see  again,  anything  so  astonishingly  beau- 
tiful. I  really  could  have  cried  with  pleasure.  I  rambled  about  for 
half  an  hour  or  more,  paying  little  or  no  attention  to  details,  but 
enjoying  the  effect  of  the  sublime  whole. 

"  In  rambling  back  to  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  I  found  myself  before 
the  portico  of  the  Pantheon.  I  was  as  much  struck  and  affected  as 
if  I  had  not  known  that  there  was  such  a  building  in  Rome.  There 
it  was,  the  work  of  the  age  of  Augustus — the  work  of  men  who  lived 
with  Cicero  and  Caesar,  and  Horace  and  Virgil." 

He  never  seems  to  have  felt  annoyed,  as  some  have 
been,  by  the  intermingling  of  Christian  and  Pagan  Rome, 
and  is  at  a  loss  to  say  which  interested  him  most.  He 
was  already  meditating  his  essay  on  the  history  of  the 


34  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

Popes,  and  throwing  into  his  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  those 
geographical  and  topographical  touches  which  set  his 
spirited  stanzas  ringing  in  the  ear  of  a  traveller  in  Rome 
at  every  turn. 

:tl  then  went  to  the  river,  to  the  spot  where  the  old  Pons  Sublicius 
stood,  and  looked  about  to  see  how  my  Horatius  agreed  with  the  topog- 
raphy. Pretty  well ;  but  his  house  must  be  on  Mount  Palatine,  for 
he  could  never  see  Mount  Co3lius  from  the  spot  where  he  fought." 

But,  like  all  active  minds  to  whom  hard  work  has  be- 
come a  habit,  Macaulay  soon  grew  weary  of  the  idleness 
of  travelling.  He  never  went  further  south  than  Naples, 
and  turned  away  from  the  Campagna,  leaving  the  delights 
of  an  Italian  spring  untasted,  to  seek  his  labour  and  his 
books  at  home.  He  reached  London  early  in  February, 
1839,  and  fell  to  work  with  the  eager  appetite  of  a  man 
who  has  had  a  long  fast.  In  less  than  three  weeks  he 
had  read  and  reviewed  Mr.  Gladstone's  book  on  Church 
and  State.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  enjoy  his  leisure 
long.  The  expiring  Whig  Ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne 
needed  all  the  support  they  could  obtain :  he  was  brought 
into  Parliament  as  member  for  Edinburgh,  and  soon  after 
admitted  into  the  Cabinet  as  Secretary-at-War. 

This  return  to  office  and  Parliament  was  an  uncom- 
pensated  loss  to  literature,  and  no  gain  to  politics.  The 
Whig  Ministry  was  past  saving ;  and  Macaulay  could 
gain  no  distinction  by  fighting  their  desperate  battle.  He 
felt  himself  that  he  was  wasting  his  time.  "I  pine," 
he  wrote,  "for  liberty  and  ease,  and  freedom  of  speech 
and  freedom  of  pen."  For  this  political  interlude  had 
necessitated  the  laying  aside  of  his  History,  which  he  had 
already  begun.  He  had  now  reached  an  age  at  which  an 
author  who  meditates  a  great  work  has  no  time  to  lose. 


i.]  HIS  HISTORY.  35 

He  was  just  turned  forty ;  a  judicious  economy  of  his  time 
and  resources  would  have  seen  him  a  long  way  towards 
the  performance  of  the  promise  with  which  his  great  work 
opens — "  I  purpose  to  write  the  history  of  England  from 
the  accession  of  King  James  II.  down  to  a  time  which  is 
•within  the  memory  of  men  still  living."  It  is  impossible 
to  read  the  forecast  he  made  of  his  work  on  the  eve  of 
his  journey  to  Italy  without  a  pang  of  regret,  and  sense  of 
a  loss  not  easily  estimated. 

"As  soon  as  I  return  I  shall  seriously  commence  my  History. 
The  first  part  (which  I  think  will  take  up  five  octavo  volumes)  will 
extend  from  the  Revolution  to  the  commencement  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole's  long  administration — a  period  of  three  or  four  and  thirty 
very  eventful  years.  From  the  commencement  of  Walpole's  admin- 
istration to  the  commencement  of  the  American  war,  events  may  be 
despatched  more  concisely.  From  the  commencement  of  the  Ameri- 
can war  it  will  again  become  necessary  to  be  copious.  How  far  I 
shall  bring  the  narrative  down  I  have  not  determined.  The  death 
of  George  IV.  would  be  the  best  halting  place." 

It  was  all  in  his  mind.  He  had  gone  over  the  ground 
again  and  again.  What  a  panorama  he  would  have 
unfolded !  what  battle-pieces  we  should  have  had  of  Marl- 
borough's  campaigns !  what  portraits  of  Bolingbroke,  Pe- 
terborough, Prince  Eugene,  and  the  rest !  It  is  a  sad  pity 
that  Lord  Melbourne,  who  was  fond  of  letting  things 
alone,  could  not  leave  Macaulay  alone,  but  must  needs 
yoke  the  celestial  steed  to  his  parliamentary  plough.  Or, 
to  put  it  more  fairly,  it  is  a  pity  that  Macaulay  himself 
had  not  sufficient  nerve,  and  consciousness  of  his  mission, 
to  resist  the  tempter.  But  he  was  loyal  to  a  degree  of 
chivalry  to  his  political  friends  who  were  in  difficulties. 
He  was,  as  his  sister's  writing-master  said,  a  "lump  of 
good -nature;"  and,  without  a  full  consciousness  of  the 


36  MACAULAY.  [OHAP. 

sacrifice  he  was  making,  he  gave  up  to  party  what  was 
meant  for  literature. 

But  he  had  a  parliamentary  triumph  of  no  common 
kind — one  of  the  two  instances  in  which,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
says,  "  he  arrested  the  successful  progress  of  legislative 
measures,  and  slew  them  at  a  moment's  notice,  and  by  his 
single  arm."  The  case  was  Serjeant  Talfourd's  Copy- 
right Bill.  His  conduct  on  this  occasion  has  been 
strangely  questioned  by  Miss  Martineau,  who  wonders 
how  an  able  literary  man  could  utter  such  a  speech,  and 
hints  "  at  some  cause  which  could  not  be  alleged  for  such 
a  man  exposing  himself  in  a  speech  unsound  in  its  whole 
argument."  In  any  case,  Macaulay  had  much  more  to 
lose  by  the  line  he  took  than  Miss  Martineau.  No 
one,  we  may  suppose  at  present,  can  read  the  oration  in 
question  without  entire  conviction  of  the  single-minded 
sense  of  duty  and  elevated  public  spirit  which  animated 
him  on  this  occasion.  Nothing  can  be  more  judicial  than 
the  way  in  which  he  balances  the  respective  claims  to 
consideration  of  authors  and  the  general  public.  In  the 
following  year  he  had  a  similar  victory  over  Lord  Mahon ; 
and  the  present  law  of  copyright  was  framed  in  accordance 
with  his  proposals,  slightly  modified.  Macaulay  made  a 
most  advantageous  contrast  to  his  brother  authors  in  this 
matter.  Even  the  "  writer  of  books "  who  petitioned 
from  Chelsea  showed  that  he  had  considered  the  subject 
to  much  less  purpose. 

Lord  Melbourne's  Government  fell  in  June,  1841 ;  and 
the  general  election  which  followed  gave  the  Tories  a 
crushing  majority.  Macaulay  was  freed. from  "that  close- 
ly watched  slavery  which  is  mocked  with  the  name  of 
power."  He  welcomed  the  change  with  exuberant  de- 
light. He  still  retained  his  seat  for  Edinburgh,  and  spoke 


L]  COPYRIGHT  BILL.  37 

occasionally  in  the  House ;  but  he  was  liberated  from  the 
wasteful  drudgery  of  office. 

Here  it  will  be  well  to  interrupt  this  personal  sketch  of 
the  writer,  and  proceed  to  a  consideration  of  some  of  his 
work.  But,  for  the  purpose  of  making  clear  some  allu- 
sions in  the  two  following  chapters,  we  may  state  in  antici- 
pation that  he  had  a  serious  attack  of  illness  in  the  year 
1852,  from  which  he  never  entirely  recovered. 


CHAPTER  H. 

CHARACTERISTICS. 

MACAULAY  belongs  to  a  class  of  writers  whom  critics  do 
not  always  approach  with  sufficient  circumspection  and 
diffidence — the  class,  namely,  of  writers  whose  merits  and 
defects  appear  to  be  so  obvious  that  there  is  no  mistaking 
them.  When  dealing  with  writers  of  this  kind,  we  are 
apt  to  think  our  task  much  easier  and  simpler  than  it  real- 
ly is.  Writers  of  startling  originality  and  depth,  difficult 
as  it  may  be  to  appraise  them  justly,  yet,  as  it  were,  warn 
critics  to  be  on  their  guard  and  take  their  utmost  pains. 
Lesser  writers,  again,  but  of  odd  and  peculiar  flavour,  are 
nearly  sure  of  receiving  adequate  attention.  But  there 
are  writers  who  belong  to  neither  of  these  classes,  whose 
merit  consists  neither  in  profound  originality  nor  special 
flavour,  but  in  a  general  wide  eloquence  and  power, 
coupled  with  a  certain  commonplaceness  of  thought,  of 
•whom  Cicero  may  be  taken  as  the  supreme  type,  and  by 
those  writers  critics  are  liable  to  be  deceived — in  two  ways. 
Either  they  admire  the  eloquence  so  much  that  they  are 
blind  to  other  deficiencies,  or  they  perceive  the  latter  so 
clearly  that  they  fail  to  do  justice  to  the  other  merits.  On 
no  writer  have  more  opposite  judgments  been  passed  than 
on  Cicero.  By  some  he  has  been  regarded  as  one  of  the 
loftiest  geniuses  of  antiquity  ;  by  others  as  a  shallow,  ver- 


CHAP,  ii.]  CHARACTERISTICS.  39 

bose,  and  ignorant  pretender;  and  perhaps  to  this  day 
Cicero's  exact  position  in  literature  has  not  been  settled. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Macaulay,  who  has  a  certain  distant 
resemblance  to  Cicero,  will  not  be  so  long  in  finding  his 
proper  place. 

That  something  like  a  reaction  against  Macaulay's  fame 
has  recently  set  in,  can  hardly  be  doubted.  It  was,  in- 
deed, to  be  expected  that  something  of  the  kind  would 
occur.  Such  reactions  against  the  fame  of  great  authors 
frequently  appear  in  the  generation  which  follows  the 
period  of  their  first  splendour.  New  modes  of  thought 
and  sentiment  arise,  amid  which  the  celebrity  of  a  recent 
past  appears  old-fashioned,  with  little  of  the  grace  which 
clothes  the  genuinely  old.  We  cannot  be  surprised  if  a 
fate  which  overtook  Pope,  Voltaire,  and  Byron  should 
now  overtake  Macaulay.  But  those  writers  have  risen 
anew  into  the  firmament  of  literature,  from  which  they 
are  not  likely  to  fall  again.  The  question  is,  whether 
Macaulay  will  ultimately  join  them  as  a  fixed  star,  and  if 
so,  of  what  magnitude?  It  would  be  against  analogy  if 
such  a  wide  and  resonant  fame  as  his  were  to  suffer  per- 
manent eclipse.  Hasty  reputations,  due  to  ephemeral 
circumstances,  may  utterly  die  out,  but  it  would  not  be 
easy  to  name  a  really  great  fame  among  contemporaries 
which  has  not  been  largely  ratified  by  posterity.  Few 
authors  have  had  greater  contemporary  fame  than  Ma- 
caulay. It  spread  through  all  classes  and  countries  like 
an  epidemic.  Foreign  courts  and  learned  societies  vied 
with  the  multitude  in  doing  him  honour.  He  was  read 
with  almost  equal  zest  in  cultivated  European  capitals  and 
in  the  scattered  settlements  of  remote  colonies.  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  loud  in  his  praise.  Professor 
Ranke  called  him  an  incomparable  man;  and  a  body  of 


40  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

English  workmen  sent  him  a  vote  of  thanks  for  having 
written  a  history  which  working-men  could  understand. 
An  author  who  collects  suffrages  from  such  opposite 
quarters  as  these  must  have  had  the  secret  of  touching  a 
deep  common  chord  in  human  nature.  It  is  the  business 
of  criticism  to  find  out  what  that  chord  was. 

Macaulay's  great  quality  is  that  of  being  one  of  the 
best  story-tellers  that  ever  lived;  and  if  we  limit  the 
competition  to  his  only  proper  rivals — the  historians — 
he  may  be  pronounced  the  best  story-teller.  If  any  one 
thinks  these  superlatives  misplaced,  let  him  mention  the 
historical  writers  whom  he  would  put  on  a  level  with  or 
above  Macaulay — always  remembering  that  the  compari- 
son is  limited  to  this  particular  point :  the  art  of  telling  a 
story  with  such  interest  and  vivacity  that  readers  have 
no  wish  but  to  read  on.  If  the  area  of  comparison  be 
enlarged  so  as  to  include  questions  of  intellectual  depth, 
moral  insight,  and  sundry  other  valuable  qualities,  the 
competition  turns  against  Macaulay,  who  at  once  sinks 
many  degrees  in  the  scale.  But  in  his  own  line  he  has 
no  rival.  And  let  no  one  undervalue  that  line.  He 
kindled  a  fervent  human  interest  in  past  and  real  events 
which  novelists  kindle  in  fictitious  events.  He  wrote  of 
the  seventeenth  century  with  the  same  vivid  sense  of 
present  reality  which  Balzac  and  Thackeray  had  when 
they  wrote  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which  was  before 
their  eyes.  And  this  was  the  peculiarity  which  fasci- 
nated contemporaries,  and  made  them  so  lavish  of  praise 
and  admiration.  They  felt,  and  very  justly,  that  history 
had  never  been  so  written  before.  It  was  a  quality  which 
all  classes,  of  all  degrees  of  culture,  could  almost  equally 
appreciate.  But  it  produced  a  feeling  of  gratitude  among 
the  more  experienced  judges  which  seems  likely  to  pass 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  41 

away.  All  the  younger  generation,  \vho  have  grown  to 
manhood  since  Macaulay  wrote,  have  become  intimately 
acquainted  with  his  writings  at  too  early  an  age  to  appre- 
ciate what  an  innovator  he  was  in  his  day.  Besides,  he 
has  had  numerous  able  though  inferior  imitators.  The 
younger  folk  therefore  see  nothing  surprising  that  history 
should  be  made  as  entertaining  as  a  novel.  But  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago  the  case  was  very  different.  Lord 
Carlisle,  when  he  finished  the  fifth  (posthumous)  volume, 
said  he  was  "in  despair  to  close  that  brilliant-pictured 
page."  It  will  generally  be  found  that  old  men  who 
were  not  far  from  being  Macaulay's  equals  in  age  are 
still  enthusiastic  in  his  praise.  It  is  the  younger  genera- 
tion, who  have  come  to  maturity  since  his  death,  who 
see  a  good  deal  to  censure  in  him,  and  not  very  much  to 
admire.  The  late  Sir  James  Stephen  said  "  he  could  for- 
give him  anything,  and  was  violently  tempted  to  admire 
even  his  faults."  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  his  son,  is  one  of 
the  most  penetrating  and  severe  of  Macaulay's  critics. 

There  is  evidently  a  misunderstanding  here  which  needs 
removing.  It  is  another  instance  of  the  opposite  sides  of 
the  shield  producing  discrepant  opinions  as  to  its  colour. 
Those  who  admire  Macaulay,  and  those  who  blame  him, 
are  thinking  of  different  things.  His  admirers  are  think- 
ing of  certain  brilliant  qualities  in  which  he  has  hardly 
ever  been  surpassed.  His  censors,  passing  these  by  with 
hasty  recognition,  point  to  grave  defects,  and  ask  if  such 
are  compatible  with  real  greatness.  Each  party  should  be 
led  to  adopt  part  of  his  opponent's  view,  without  surren- 
dering what  is  true  in  his  own.  Macaulay's  eminence  as 
a  raconteur  should  not  only  be  admitted  with  cold  assent, 
but  proclaimed  supreme  and  unrivalled  in  its  own  way, 
as  it  really  is.  On  the  other  hand,  his  serious  deficiencies 


42  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

in  other  ways  should  be  acknowledged  with  equal  frank- 
ness. 

One  of  his  most  remarkable  qualities  as  a  writer  is  his 
power  of  interesting  the  reader  and  holding  his  attention. 
It  is  a  gift  by  itself,  and  not  very  easy  to  analyze.  Some 
of  the  greatest  writers  have  wanted  it. 

Dr.  Johnson,  speaking  of  Prior's  Solomon  and  the  par- 
tiality with  which  its  author  regarded  it,  says : 

"  His  affection  was  natural ;  it  had  undoubtedly  been  written  with 
great  labour,  and  who  is  willing  to  think  that  he  has  been  labouring 
in  vain  ?  He  had  infused  into  it  much  knowledge  and  much  thought ; 
he  had  polished  it  often  to  elegance,  and  often  dignified  it  with  splen- 
dour, and  sometimes  heightened  it  to  sublimity.  He  perceived  in  it 
many  excellences,  and  did  not  discover  that  it  wanted  that  without 
which  all  others  are  of  small  avail — the  power  of  engaging  attention 
and  alluring  curiosity.  Tediousness  is  the  most  fatal  of  faults." 

Of  the  truth  of  this  last  remark  there  is  no  doubt. 
But  what  was  the  secret  of  the  tediousness  of  the  poem 
Solomon,  which,  according  to  Johnson,  was  almost  as 
great  a  paragon  as  the  Hebrew  monarch  after  whom  it 
was  named?  A  work  on  which  great  labour  had  been 
spent,  which  contained  thought  and  knowledge,  which  had 
polish,  elegance,  splendour,  and  occasionally  sublimity,  one 
would  have  thought  was  not  likely  to  be  dull.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  Solomon  is  dead  and  buried  fathoms  deep  in 
its  own  dulness.  In  this  special  case  Johnson  gives  at 
least  one  good  reason,  but  he  throws  no  light  on  the  gen- 
eral question  of  dulness — in  what  it  consists,  by  which  we 
might  also  explain  in  what  interest  consists.  It  appears 
that  Macaulay  himself  was  puzzled  with  the  same  diffi- 
culty. "Where  lies,"  he  asks,  somewhat  unjustly,  with 
reference  to  a  novel  of  Lord  Lytton,  "  the  secret  of  being 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  43 

amusing?  and  how  is  it  that  art,  eloquence,  and  diligence 
may  all  be  employed  in  making  a  book  dull  ?" 

Few  authors  have  had  in  larger  degree  than  Macaulay 
"  the  secret  of  being  amusing,"  of  "  engaging  attention 
and  alluring  curiosity,"  as  Dr.  Johnson  says.  He  is  rare- 
ly, perhaps  never,  absolutely  dull.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  is  not  too  lively  and  stimulating,  and  avoids,  therefore, 
producing  that  sense  of  fatigue  in  the  reader  which  even 
genuine  wit,  if  there  is  too  much  of  it,  is  apt  to  engender. 
He  had  the  talent  which  he  concedes  to  Walpole,  of  writ- 
ing what  people  like  to  read.  Perhaps  the  secret  of  his 
charm  lay  in  this:  first,  that  he  was  deeply  interested 
himself  in  the  subjects  that  he  handles.  His  bond  fide 
wish  to  do  them  justice — to  impart  his  knowledge — is  not 
hampered  by  any  anxious  self-consciousness  as  to  the  im- 
pression he  himself  is  making.  His  manner  is  straight- 
forward and  frank,  and  therefore  winning,  and  he  commu- 
nicates the  interest  he  feels.  Secondly,  he  was  an  adept 
in  the  art  of  putting  himself  en  rapport  with  his  reader — 
of  not  going  too  fast,  or  too  far,  or  too  deep  for  the  ordi- 
nary intelligence.  He  takes  care  not  only  to  be  clear  in 
language,  but  to  follow  a  line  of  thought  from  which  ob- 
scurity and  even  twilight  are  excluded.  His  attention, 
indeed,  to  the  needs  of  dull  readers  was  excessive,  and  has 
risked  the  esteem  of  readers  of  another  kind.  He  often 
steered  too  near  the  shoals  of  commonplace  to  suit  the 
taste  of  many  persons ;  still,  he  never  fairly  runs  aground. 
He  has  one  great  merit  which  can  be  appreciated  by  all — 
his  thought  is  always  well  within  his  reach,  and  is  unfold- 
ed with  complete  mastery  and  ease  to  its  uttermost  fila- 
ment. He  is  never  vague,  shadowy,  and  incomplete.  The 
reader  is  never  perplexed  by  ideas  imperfectly  grasped,  by 
thoughts  which  the  writer  cannot  fully  express.  On  the 
D  3 


44  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

other  hand,  his  want  of  aspiration,  of  all  effort  to  rise  into 
the  higher  regions  of  thought,  has  lost  him  in  the  opinion 
of  many  readers.  He  is  one  of  the  most  entertaining,  but 
also  one  of  the  least  suggestive,  of  writers. 

His  powers  of  brilliant  illustration  have  never  been  de- 
nied, and  it  would  not  be  easy  to  name  their  equal.  His 
command  of  perfectly  apposite  and  natural,  yet  not  at  all 
obvious,  images  is  not  more  wonderful  than  the  ease  with 
which  they  are  introduced.  Few  readers  are  likely  to  have 
forgotten  the  impression  they  once  made  on  the  youthful 
mind.  It  was  something  quite  new  and  almost  bewilder- 
ing, like  the  first  night  at  the  play.  He  can  conjure  up  in 
a  moment  a  long  vista  of  majestic  similes,  which  attracts 
the  eye  like  a  range  of  snow-capped  mountains.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  opening  passages  of  the  articles  on  Lord 
Clive  and  Rankers  History  of  the  Popes.  As  soon  as  the 
curtain  rises  a  grand  panorama  seems  spread  out  before  us. 
The  first  begins  with  a  comparison  between  the  English 
conquests  of  India  and  the  Spanish  conquest  of  America. 
But  notice  how  pictorially  it  is  done : 

"The  people  of  India  when  we  subdued  them  were  ten  times  as 
numerous  as  the  Americans  whom  the  Spaniards  vanquished,  and 
were  at  the  same  time  quite  as  highly  civilized  as  the  victorious 
Spaniards.  They  had  reared  cities  larger  and  fairer  than  Saragossa 
and  Toledo,  and  buildings  more  beautiful  and  costly  than  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Seville.  They  could  show  bankers  richer  than  the  richest 
firms  of  Barcelona  or  Cadiz ;  viceroys  whose  splendour  far  surpassed 
that  of  Ferdinand  the  Catholic ;  myriads  of  cavalry  and  long  trains 
of  artillery  which  would  have  astonished  the  Great  Captain." 

The  passage  is  spoiled  by  mutilation;  but  readers  can 
turn  to  it  if  they  do  not  remember  it.  In  the  same  way, 
the  article  on  the  Popes  opens  with  a  truly  grand  picture : 
"  No  other  institution  "  (save  the  Papacy)  "  is  left  stand- 


n.J  CHARACTERISTICS.  45 

ing  which  carries  the  mind  back  to  the  times  when  the 
smoke  of  sacrifice  rose  from  the  Pantheon,  and  when  ca- 
melopards  and  tigers  bounded  in  the  Flavian  Amphithe- 
atre." Again :  "  She  was  great  and  respected  before  the 
Saxon  had  set  foot  in  Britain,  before  the  Frank  had  passed 
the  Rhine,  when  Grecian  eloquence  still  flourished  in  An- 
tioch,  when  idols  were  still  worshipped  in  the  Temple  of 
Mecca."  The  sensitive  youth  feels  his  breath  catch  at  il- 
lustrations like  these.  If  they  pall  on  the  older  mind,  it 
is  because  they  are  found  to  be  addressed  almost  exclu- 
sively to  the  eye :  they  are  followed  by  nothing  of  impor- 
tance addressed  to  the  reason.  We  shall  have  occasion 
to  see  that  this  sumptuous  opening  of  the  article  on  the 
Popes  leads  to  a  disquisition  at  once  inaccurate  in  facts 
and  superficial  in  argument. 

Macaulay's  talent  as  an  historical  artist  will  be  con- 
sidered at  some  length  when  we  come  to  examine  the 
History  of  England.  It  will  be  sufficient  in  this  general 
view  to  remark  the  skill  with  which  he  has  overcome  the 
peculiar  difficulties  of  historical  composition.  The  great 
difficulty  in  drawing  the  picture  of  a  complex  society 
in  a  past  age  is  to  combine  unity  with  breadth  of  com- 
position. In  a  long  narrative  only  a  very  small  portion 
of  the  picture  can  be  seen  at  one  time.  The  whole 
is  never  presented  at  one  moment  with  concentrated 
effect,  such  as  the  painter  can  command,  who  places 
on  one  canvas,  which  can  be  easily  surveyed,  all  that  he 
has  to  tell  us.  The  historian  cannot  bring  all  his  troops 
on  the  ground  at  once  and  strike  the  mind  by  a  wide  and 
magnificent  display.  He  is  reduced  to  a  march  past  in 
narrow  file.  The  danger,  therefore,  is  that  the  effect  of 
the  whole  will  be  feeble  or  lost.  In  the  hands  of  a  weak 

man  a  thin  stream  of  narrative  meanders  on,  but  a  broad 
18 


46  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

view  is  nowhere  obtained.  The  lowest  form  of  historical 
writing  is  the  chronicle,  or  mere  annals,  in  which  a  broad 
view  is  not  so  much  as  aimed  at.  In  great  historical 
work  the  immediate  portion  of  the  narrative  passing  be- 
fore the  reader's  eye  is  always  kept  in  subordinate  rela- 
tion to  the  whole  drama  of  which  it  forms  a  part.  And 
this  is  the  problem,  to  keep  the  whole  suggestively  before 
the  reader  while  only  a  part  is  being  shown.  Only  a 
strong  imagination  is  equal  to  this  task.  The  mind  of  the 
writer  must  hold  the  entire  picture  suspended  in  his  fancy 
while  he  is  painting  each  separate  portion  of  it.  And  he 
paints  each  separate  portion  of  it  with  a  view  to  its  fitness 
and  relation  to  the  whole. 

No  fair  critic  will  deny  that  Macaulay's  execution  in 
all  these  respects  is  simply  masterly.  The  two  volumes 
which  comprise  the  reign  of  James  II.  in  spite  of  their 
abundant  detail  are  as  truly  an  organic  whole  as  a 
sonnet.  Though  the  canvas  is  crowded  in  every  part 
with  events  and  characters,  there  is  no  confusion,  no  ob- 
struction to  clear  vision.  Wherever  we  stand  we  seem 
to  be  opposite  to  the  centre  of  the  picture.  However 
interested  we  may  be  in  a  part,  we  are  never  allowed 
to  lose  sight  of  the  whole.  The  compelling  force  of  the 
writer's  imagination  always  keeps  it  in  a  latent  suggestive 
way  before  our  minds.  And  all  this  is  done  under  a 
self-imposed  burden  which  is  without  example.  For,  in 
obedience  to  his  canon  as  to  how  history  should  be  written, 
the  author  has  weighted  himself  with  a  load  of  minute 
detail  such  as  no  historian  ever  uplifted  before.  He 
hardly  ever  mentions  a  site,  a  town,  a  castle,  a  manor- 
house,  he  rarely  introduces  even  a  subordinate  character, 
without  bringing  in  a  picturesque  anecdote,  an  association, 
a  reminiscence  out  of  his  boundless  stores  of  knowledge, 


ii.]  CHARACTERISTICS.  47 

which  sparkles  like  a  gem  on  the  texture  of  his  narra- 
tive. Nothing  can  exceed  the  skill  with  which  these  little 
vignettes  are  thrown  in,  and  they  are  incessant ;  yet  they 
never  seem  to  be  in  the  way,  or  to  hinder  the  main  effect. 
Take  as  an  instance  this  short  reference  to  the  Earl  of 
Craven.  It  occurs  in  the  very  crisis  of  the  story,  when 
James  II.  was  a  prisoner  in  his  own  palace,  between  his 
first  and  second  attempts  to  fly  the  country : 

"  James,  while  his  fate  was  under  discussion,  remained  at  White- 
hall, fascinated,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  greatness  and  nearness  of  the 
danger,  and  unequal  to  the  exertion  of  either  struggling  or  fiying. 
In  the  evening  news  came  that  the  Dutch  had  occupied  Chelsea  and 
Kensington.  The  King,  however,  prepared  to  go  to  rest  as  usual. 
The  Coldstream  Guards  were  on  duty  at  the  palace.  They  were 
commanded  by  William,  Earl  of  Craven,  an  aged  man,  who,  more 
than  fifty  years  before,  had  been  distinguished  in  war  and  love, 
who  had  led  the  forlorn  hope  at  Creutznach  with  such  courage  that 
he  had  been  patted  on  the  shoulder  by  the  great  Gustavus,  and  who 
was  believed  to  have  won  from  a  thousand  rivals  the  heart  of  the  un- 
fortunate Queen  of  Bohemia.  Craven  was  now  in  his  eightieth  year ; 
yet  time  had  not  tamed  his  spirit.  It  was  past  ten  o'clock  when  he 
was  informed  that  three  battalions  of  the  Prince's  foot,  mingled  with 
some  troops  of  horse,  were  pouring  down  the  long  avenue  of  St. 
James's  Park,  with  matches  lighted,  and  in  full  readiness  for  action. 
Count  Solmes,  who  commanded  the  foreigners,  said  that  his  orders 
were  to  take  military  possession  of  the  posts  round  Whitehall,  and 
exhorted  Craven  to  retire  peaceably.  Craven  swore  that  he  would 
rather  be  cut  to  pieces ;  but  when  the  King,  who  was  undressing  him- 
self, learned  what  was  passing  he  forbade  the  stout  old  soldier  to 
attempt  a  resistance  which  must  have  been  ineffectual." 

How  truly  artistic !  and  how  much  Craven's  conduct  is 
explained  and  heightened  by  that  little  touch  recalling 
Creutznach,  the  forlorn  hope,  and  the  Great  Gustavus! 
What  a  vista  up  the  seventeenth  century  to  the  far  ofi 
Thirty  Years'  War  is  opened  in  a  moment!  I  recall  no 


48  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

writer  who  is  Macaulay's  equal  in  this  art  of  covering  his 
larger  surfaces  with  minute  work  which  is  never  out  of 
place.  Like  the  delicate  sculpture  on  the  sandals  of 
Athene,  in  the  Parthenon,  it  detracts  nothing  from  the 
grandeur  of  the  statue.  Or,  to  take  a  more  appropriate 
figure,  it  resembles  a  richly  decorated  Gothic  porch,  in 
which  every  stone  is  curiously  carved,  and  yet  does  its 
duty  in  bearing  the  weight  of  the  mighty  arch  as  well  as 
if  it  were  perfectly  plain. 

There  are  only  two  modern  men  with  whom  he  can  be 
worthily  compared,  Michelet  and  Carlyle.  Both  are  his 
superiors  in  what  Mr.  Ruskin  calls  penetrative  imagina- 
tion. Both  have  an  insight  into  the  moral  world  and 
the  mind  of  man,  of  which  he  is  wholly  incapable.  Both 
have  a  simple  directness  of  vision,  the  real  poet's  eye  for 
nature  and  character,  which  he  entirely  lacks.  Carlyle 
especially  can  emit  a  lightning  flash,  which  makes  Ma- 
caulay's prose,  always  a  little  pompous  in  his  ambitious 
flights,  burn  dim  and  yellow.  But  on  another  side  Ma- 
caulay  has  his  revenge.  For  clear,  broad  width,  for  steadi- 
ness of  view  and  impartiality  of  all-round  presentations,  he 
is  their  superior.  Carlyle's  dazzling  effects  of  white  light 
are  frequently  surrounded  by  the  blackest  gloom.  Even 
that  lovely  "  evening  sun  of  July  " — in  a  well-known  pas- 
sage of  the  French  Revolution — emerges  only  for  a  mo- 
ment from  a  dark  cloud,  which  speedily  obscures  it  again. 
Michelet's  light  is  less  fitful  than  Carlyle's ;  it  is,  perhaps, 
also  less  brilliant.  Macaulay's  light,  pale  in  comparison 
with  their  meteoric  splendours,  has  the  advantage  of  being 
equal  and  steady,  and  free  from  the  danger  of  going  out. 
There  is  yet  another  quality  in  which  he  gains  by  com- 
parison with  the  strongest  men — the  art  of  historical  per- 
spective. His  scenes  are  always  placed  at  the  right  dis- 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  49 

tance  for  taking  in  their  full  effect.  The  vividness  of 
Carlyle's  imagination  often  acts  like  a  powerful  telescope, 
and  brings  objects  too  near  the  observer.  The  events  in 
the  French  Revolution  very  often  appear  as  if  enacted 
under  our  windows.  What  is  just  in  front  of  us  we  see 
with  almost  oppressive  distinctness,  but  the  eye  cannot 
range  over  a  wide  yet  perfectly  visible  panorama.  Ma- 
caulay  never  falls  into  this  error.  His  pictures  are  always 
far  enough  off  for  the  whole  sweep  of  the  prospect  to  be 
seen  with  ease.  He  seems  to  lead  us  up  to  a  lofty  terrace 
overlooking  a  spacious  plain  which  lies  spread  out  below. 
For  size,  power,  and  brightness,  if  not  always  purity  of  col- 
our, he  has  some  title  to  be  called  the  Rubens  of  historians. 

Admitting  all,  or  a  portion,  of  what  is  thus  advanced, 
the  opposition  to  Macaulay  has  a  very  serious  counter- 
statement  to  offer.  The  chief  complaint — and  it  is  suffi- 
ciently grave  —  is  of  a  constant  and  pervading  want  of 
depth,  either  of  thought  or  sentiment.  Macaulay,  it  is 
said,  did  little  or  nothing  to  stir  the  deeper  mind  or  the 
deeper  feelings  of  his  multitude  of  readers. 

As  regards  the  first  charge,  want  of  intellectual  depth, 
it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  even  the  semblance  of  a  defence. 
Indeed,  Macaulay  owns  his  guilt  with  a  certain  amount  of 
bravado.  He  has  expressed  his  contempt  of  all  higher 
speculation  with  too  much  scorn  to  leave  any  room  for 
doubt  or  apology  on  that  head.  He  never  refers  to  phi- 
losophy except  in  a  tone  of  disparagement  and  sneer. 
"  Such  speculations  are  in  a  peculiar  manner  the  delight 
of  intelligent  children  and  half-civilized  men."  Among 
the  speculations  thus  dismissed  with  derision  are  the  ques- 
tions of  "  the  necessity  of  human  actions  and  the  founda- 
tion of  moral  obligation."  Thus,  Macaulay  disbelieved  in 
the  possibility  of  ethical  science.  Of  a  translation  of  Kant 


60  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

which  had  been  sent  him  he  speaks  with  amusing  airs  of 
superiority,  says  he  cannot  understand  a  word  of  it  any 
more  than  if  it  had  been  written  in  Sanscrit ;  fully  per- 
suaded that  the  fault  lay  with  Kant,  and  not  with  him- 
self. But  his  dislike  of  arduous  thinking  did  not  stop 
with  philosophy.  He  speaks  of  Montesquieu  with  great 
disdain ;  pronounces  him  to  be  specious,  but  obscure  as 
an  oracle,  and  shallow  as  a  Parisian  coxcomb.  There  is 
no  trace  in  Macaulay's  writings  or  life  that  he  was  ever 
arrested  by  an  intellectual  difficulty  of  any  kind.  He  can 
bombard  with  great  force  of  logic  and  rhetoric  an  enemy's 
position ;  but  his  mind  never  seems  to  have  suggested  to 
him  problems  of  its  own.  In  reading  him  we  glide  along 
the  smoothest  surface,  we  are  hurried  from  picture  to  pict- 
ure, but  we  never  meet  with  a  thoughtful  pause  which 
makes  us  consider  with  closed  eyes  what  the  conclusion 
may  well  be.  Strange  to  say,  he  more  nearly  approaches 
discussion  of  principles  in  his  speeches  than  in  other  por- 
tions of  his  works;  but  a  writer  of  less  speculative  force 
hardly  exists  in  the  language.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  from 
his  diaries  and  correspondence  that  he  had  any  intellectual 
interests  of  any  kind,  except  his  taste — if  that  can  be  called 
an  intellectual  interest — for  poetry  and  the  Greek  and  Lat- 
in classics.  His  letters  are,  with  few  exceptions,  mere  lively 
gossip.  He  rarely  discusses  even  politics,  in  which  he  took 
so  large  a  share,  with  any  serious  heartiness.1  He  just 

1  The  only  even  apparent  exceptions  to  this  general  statement  is 
a  group  of  four  or  five  letters  of  the  year  1845,  recounting  Lord 
John  Russell's  abortive  attempt  to  form  a  ministry ;  and  a  truly  ad- 
mirable letter  to  Mr.  Ellis,  narrating  the  scene  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons on  the  passing  of  the  first  Reform  Bill  by  a  majority  of  one. 
But  even  these  letters  deal  chiefly  with  news,  and  hardly  attempt 
the  discussion  of  principles. 

Perhaps  the  time  has  not  yet  come  for  a  fully  representative  se- 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  51 

gives  the  last  news.  He  does  not  betray  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  science,  or  social  or  religious  questions,  except  an 
amusing  petulance  at  the  progress  of  the  Tractarian  move- 
ment, on  which  he  writer  squibs ;  but  otherwise  he  lived 
in  almost  complete  ia*»te  j')n  amid  the  active  intellectual 
life  of  his  day.  He  appears  to  have  been  almost  wholly 
wanting  in  intellectual  curiosity  of  any  kind. 

This  is  shown  by  the  strange  indifference  with  which 
he  treated  his  own  subject — history.  He  lived  in  an  age 
in  which  some  of  the  most  important  historical  works 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen  were  published.  He  was 
contemporary  (to  name  only  the  chief)  with  Sismondi, 
De  Barante,  Guizot,  the  two  Thierrys,  Mignet,  Michelet,  in 
France  ;  with  Raumer,  Schlosser,  Niebuhr,  Otfried,  Miiller, 
Gans,  Neander,  F.  G.  Bauer,  Waitz,  Roth,  in  Germany.  He 
never  mentions  one  of  them — except  Sismondi,  with  a 
sneer.  The  only  modern  historians  of  whom  he  takes 
notice  are  Ranke  and  Hallam — and  this  not  with  a  view 
to  considering  the  value  of  their  historical  work  proper, 
but  because  they  furnished  him  with  a  convenient  armoury 
for  his  own  polemical  purposes.  If  he  had  had  any  wide, 
generous  interest  in  the  progress  of  historical  knowledge, 
he  must  have  shown  more  sympathy  with  men  engaged  in 
the  same  field  of  labour  as  himself.  He  professed  to  be  a 
reformer  of  history.  These  men  were  reformers  who  had 
proclaimed,  and  put  in  practice,  every  principle  of  any 
value  which  he  advocated  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  in  his 
article  on  History,  published  in  1828.  He  lays  down,  not 
without  a  certain  air  as  of  a  discoverer,  the  new  method 
on  which  he  conceives  history  should  be  written — that  it 

lection  of  Macaulay's  best  letters.     He  must  have  written,  one  would 
think,  to  his  colleagues  and  others  with  more  weight  and  earnestness 
than  appears  anywhere  at  present. 
3* 


52  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

should  be,  not  abstract  and  logical,  but  concrete,  graphic, 
and  picturesque.  One  might  have  expected  that  two  of 
the  most  picturesque  presentations  of  past  times  which 
literature  has  to  show — which,  when  Macaulay  wrote  his 
article,  had  been  recently  published  and  attracted  Europe- 
an attention — would  have  been  at  least  named  on  such  an 
occasion.  De  Barante's  Histoire  des  Dues  de  Bourgogne 
(published  in  1824-'26)  and  Augustin  Thierry's  Histoire 
de  la  Conquete  d"1  Angleterre  par  les  Normands  (1825)  had 
a  success  in  the  world  of  letters  second  only  to  Macaulay's 
own  success  some  quarter  of  a  century  later  with  his  His- 
tory of  England.  Those  writers  were  busy  with  the  very 
task  which  he  summoned  historians  to  take  in  hand. 
Their  fame  was  recent  and  prominent,  one  of  the  events 
of  the  day.  He  was  writing  on  a  subject  from  which  a 
reference  to  them,  one  would  think,  could  not  be  excluded. 
It  is  excluded,  as  completely  as  if  they  had  never  existed. 
How  may  this  be  explained?  Did  he  not  know  their 
works  ?  or  did  he  not  appreciate  them  ?  Neither  alterna- 
tive is  welcome.  His  friend  Hallam,  when  an  old  man, 
worn  down  with  years  and  domestic  afflictions,  set  him  a 
very  different  example.  In  his  supplementary  volume  to 
the  History  of  the  Middle  Ages  he  shows  how  carefully 
he  had  made  himself  acquainted  with  all  the  more  impor- 
tant historical  inquiries  of  the  Continent.  But  then  Hal- 
lam  cared  for  the  progress  of  historical  research :  he  saw 
that  history  was  full  of  problems  which  required  solution. 
He  could  not  be  indifferent  to  what  other  men  were  doing. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  Macaulay  cared  for  little  beside  his 
own  success  as  an  historical  artist. 

The  most  important  reform  in  historical  studies  ever 
made  has  been  the  application  of  a  critical  method  to  the 
study  of  the  past ;  in  other  words,  the  application  of  as 


n.]  CHARACTERISTICS.  53 

much  of  scientific  carefulness  and  precision  as  the  subject 
allows.  This  revolution  —  for  it  is  nothing  less  —  had 
already  begun  in  Macaulay's  youth ;  and  during  his  life- 
time it  had  won  notable  victories  in  almost  every  field  of 
historical  inquiry.  He  not  only  did  nothing  for  historical 
criticism,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  of  its  exist- 
ence. He  took  as  little  notice  of  the  labours  of  his  coun- 
trymen, Palgrave,  Dr.  Guest,  Kemble,  as  he  did  of  the 
labours  of  foreigners.  He  investigated  no  obscure  ques- 
tions, cleared  up  no  difficulties,  reversed  the  opinion  of 
scholars  upon  no  important  point.  The  following  pas- 
sage in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Ellis  is  characteristic : 
"  While  I  was  reading  the  earlier  books  (of  Livy)  I  went 
again  through  Niebuhr ;  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that,  hav- 
ing always  been  a  little  sceptical  about  his  merits,  I 
am  now  a  confirmed  unbeliever" — a  judgment  which 
throws  more  light  on  Macaulay's  own  merits  than  on 
Niebuhr's. 

The  want  of  ethical  depth  is  at  least  as  striking.  He 
looks  away  from  moral  problems  even  more  resolutely 
than  from  intellectual  problems.  He  never  has  anything 
to  say  on  the  deeper  aspects  and  relations  of  life;  and  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  quote  a  sentence  from  either  his 
published  works  or  private  letters  which  shows  insight 
or  meditation  on  love,  or  marriage,  or  friendship,  or  the 
education  of  children,  on  religious  faith  or  doubt.  We 
find  no  trace  in  him  of  a  "  wise  spirit,"  which  has  had 
practical  experience  of  the  solemn  realities  and  truths  of 
existence.  His  learning  is  confined  to  book-lore :  he  is 
not  well  read  in  the  human  heart,  and  still  less  in  the 
human  spirit.  His  unspirituality  is  complete;  we  never 
catch  "a  glimpse  of  the  far  land"  through  all  his  brill- 
iant narratives ;  never,  in  his  numerous  portraits,  comes 


04  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

a  line  of  moral  suggestiveness,  showing  an  eye  for  the 
deeper  springs  of  character,  the  finer  shades  of  motive. 
His  inability  to  criticise  works  of  poetry  and  fiction  ex- 
tended to  their  chief  subject — the  human  heart;  and  it 
may  be  noticed  that  the  remarkable  interest  he  often 
awakens  in  a  story  which  he  tells  so  admirably,  is  nearly 
always  the  interest  of  adventure,  never  the  interest  of 
psychological  analysis.  Events  and  outward  actions  are 
told  with  Incomparable  clearness  and  vigour — but  a  thick 
curtain  hangs  before  the  inward  theatre  of  the  mind, 
which  is  never  revealed  on  his  stage.  He  had  a  favourite 
theory,  on  which  he  often  insisted,  that  children  were 
the  only  true  poets ;  and  this  because  of  the  vividness  of 
their  impressions :  "  No  man,  whatever  his  sensibility  may 
be,  is  ever  affected  by  Hamlet,  or  Lear,  as  a  little  girl  is 
affected  by  the  story  of  poor  little  Red  Riding-hood"—1 
as  if  the  force  of  the  impression  were  everything,  and  its 
character  nothing.  By  this  rule,  wax -work  should  bd 
finer  art  than  the  best  sculpture  in  stone.  The  impres^ 
siveness  of  remote  suggestive  association  by  which  high 
art  touches  the  deepest  chords  of  feeling  Macaulay,  appar* 
ently,  did  not  recognize.  He  had  no  ear  for  the  finer 
harmonies  of  the  inner  life. 

The  truth  is  that  he  almost  wholly  lacked  the  strongef 
passions.  A  sweet,  affectionate  tenderness  for  friends 
and  relations  was  the  deepest  emotion  he  knew.  This, 
coupled  with  his  unselfishness,  made  him  a  most  winning 
character  to  those  near  him,  as  it  certainly  filled  his  life 
with  placid  content  and  happiness.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  of  strong  feeling  in  his  story.  I  cannot  readily 
believe  the  report  that  he  was  ever  at  one  time  a  good 
hater.  He  had  his  tempers,  of  course,  like  other  men ; 
but  what  sign  is  there  of  any  fervent  heat,  or  lasting 


n.]  CHARACTERISTICS.  55 

mood  of  passion?  Even  in  politics — the  side  on  which 
he  was  most  susceptible  of  strong  feeling—- he  soon  be- 
came calm,  reasonable,  gentle  —  like  the  good,  upright, 
amiable  man  he  was.  Consider  his  prudence.  He  never 
took  a  hasty  or  unwise  step  in  his  life.  His  judgment 
was  never  misled  in  matters  of  conduct  for  a  single  mo- 
ment. He  walked  in  the  honourable  path  he  had  chosen 
with  a  certainty  as  unerring  as  if  Minerva  had  been 
present  at  his  side.  He  never  seems  to  have  had  occa- 
sion either  to  yield  to,  or  to  resist,  a  strong  temptation. 
He  was  never  in  love.  Ambition  never  got  possession 
of  his  mind.  We  cannot  imagine  him  doing  anything 
wrong,  or  even  indecorous :  an  elopement,  a  duel,  an  es- 
clandre  of  any  kind,  cannot  be  associated  even  in  imag- 
ination with  his  name.  He  was  as  blameless  as  Telem- 

achus — 

"  Centred  in  the  sphere 
Of  common  duties,  decent  not  to  fail 
In  offices  of  tenderness,  and  pay 
Meet  adoration  to  the  household  gods  " — 

of  spotless  respectability.  He  is  not  to  be  blamed,  but 
very  much  envied,  for  such  a  constitution  of  mind.  But 
this  is  not  the  stuff  of  which  great  writers  who  stir  men's 
hearts  are  made.  He  makes  us  esteem  him  so  much  that 
we  can  do  little  more ;  he  cannot  provoke  our  love,  pity, 
or  passionate  sympathy.  There  is  no  romance,  pathos, 
or  ideality  in  his  life  or  his  writings.  We  never  leave 
him  conscious  that  we  have  been  raised  into  a  higher 
tone  of  feeling,  chastened  and  subdued  into  humility, 
courage,  and  sacrifice.  He  never  makes  us  feel  "what 
shadows  we  are  and  what  shadows  we  pursue."  How 
should  he  ?  His  own  view  of  life  was  essentially  flat  and 
prosaic.  Not  an  aspiration  for  the  future ;  no  noble 


66  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

unrest  and  discontent  with  the  present;  no  sympathetic 
tenderness  for  the  past.  He  resembled  Rubens  in  more 
ways  than  one. 

"No  phenomenon  in  the  human  mind,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "is  more 
extraordinary  than  the  junction  of  this  cold,  worldly  temper  with 
great  rectitude  of  principle  and  tranquil  kindness  of  heart.  Rubens 
was  an  honourable  and  entirely  well-intentioned  man,  earnestly  indus- 
trious, simple  and  temperate  in  habits  of  life,  high-bred,  learned,  and 
discreet;  his  affection  for  his  mother  was  great;  his  generosity  to 
contemporary  artists  unfailing.  He  is  a  healthy,  worthy,  kind-heart- 
ed, courtly-phrased — animal,  without  any  clearly  perceptible  traces 
of  a  soul,  except  when  he  paints  his  children."1 

Macaulay  had  no  children  of  his  own  to  paint;  but  no 
man  was  ever  fonder  of  children. 

"  He  was,  beyond  all  comparison,  the  best  of  playfellows ;  unri- 
valled in  the  invention  of  games,  and  never  wearied  of  repeating 
them.  He  had  an  inexhaustible  repertory  of  small  dramas  for  the 
benefit  of  his  nieces,  in  which  he  sustained  an  endless  number  of 
parts.  .  .  .  There  was  one  never-failing  game,  of  building  up  a  den 
with  newspapers  behind  the  sofa,  and  of  enacting  robbers  and  tigers 
— the  children  shrieking  with  terror,  but  always  fascinated,  and 
begging  him  to  begin  again."2 

He  had  complete  sympathy  with  children,  and  knew 
the  way  to  their  hearts  better  than  to  those  of  their 
seniors.  Once  he  bought  a  superb  sheet  of  paper  for  a 
guinea,  on  which  to  write  a  valentine  to  his  little  niece 
Alice.  He  notes  in  his  diary  on  the  14th  of  February : 

"  At  three  .  .  .  came  the  children.  Alice  was  in  perfect  raptures 
over  her  valentine.  She  begged  quite  pathetically  to  be  told  the 
truth  about  it.  When  we  were  alone  together  she  said, '  I  am  going 
to  be  very  serious.'  Down  she  fell  before  me  on  her  knees,  and 
lifted  up  her  hands :  *  Dear  uncle,  do  tell  the  truth  to  your  little  girl. 
Did  you  send  the  valentine  ?'  I  did  not  choose  to  tell  a  real  lie  to  a 
child,  even  about  such  a  trifle,  and  so  I  owned  it." 

1  Modern  Painters^  vol.  v.  part  9.  a  Trevelyan,  vol.  ii.  cap.  il 


n.]  CHARACTERISTICS.  57 

A  charming  little  scene,  showing  Macaulay's  two  best 
sides,  tenderness  and  rectitude.  But  again :  to  distress, 
or  its  artful  counterfeit,  he  was  always  pitiful  and  gener- 
ous. In  his  journal  he  writes:  "December  27. — Disagree- 
able weather,  and  disagreeable  news.  is  in  difficulty 

again.  I  sent  501.,  and  shall  send  the  same  to ,  who 

does  not  ask  it.  But  I  cannot  help  being  vexed.  All  the 
fruits  of  my  book  have  for  this  year  been  swallowed  up. 
It  will  be  all  that  I  can  do  to  make  both  ends  meet  with- 
out breaking  in  upon  capital."  Leigh  Hunt  enclosed  in  a 
begging  letter  a  criticism  on  the  Roman  Lays,  lamenting 
that  they  wanted  the  true  poetical  aroma  which  breathes 
from  Spenser's  faery  Queen.  Macaulay,  who  had  none  of 
an  author's  vanity,  was  "  much  pleased "  with  this  sin- 
cerity. 

Is  there  not  reason  to  doubt  whether  a  natural  predis- 
position to  the  cardinal  virtues  is  the  best  outfit  for  the 
prophet,  the  artist,  or  even  the  preacher  ?  Saints  from  of 
old  have  been  more  readily  made  out  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners than  out  of  Pharisees  who  pay  tithes  of  all  they  pos- 
sess. The  artist,  the  writer,  and  even  the  philosopher 
equally  need  passion  to  do  great  work;  and  genuine  pas- 
sion is  ever  apt  to  be  unruly,  though  by  stronger  men 
eventually  subdued.  "Coldness  and  want  of  passion  in 
a  picture  are  not  signs  of  its  accuracy,  but  of  the  paucity 
of  its  statements."1  "  Pour  faire  de  bons  vers,  il  faut  avoir 
le  diable  au  corps,"  said  Voltaire.  Macaulay  had  far  too 
little  of  the  "  diable  au  corps "  to  make  him  a  writer  of 
impressive  individuality  and  real  power.  The  extent  of 
his  fame  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  depth.  Except  a 
certain  influence  on  the  style  of  journalism,  which  threatens 
to  be  transient,  he  has  left  little  mark  on  his  age.  Out  of 
1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  L 


68  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

his  millions  of  readers  there  has  scarcely  come  one  genuine 
disciple. 

By  a  change  of  taste  as  remarkable  as  any  in  literature 
his  style,  which  was  universally  admired,  is  now  very  free- 
ly decried  —  perhaps  more  than  justice  requires.  It  can- 
not be  denied  that  it  was  a  new  style :  all  contemporaries, 
headed  by  Jeffrey,  agreed  upon  that  point.  Real  novelty 
of  style  is  generally  a  safe  test  of  originality  of  mind  and 
character.  With  Macaulay  the  test  does  not  extend  so  far. 
Still,  his  style  is  perhaps  the  most  original  thing  about  him. 
Its  peculiarity  is  the  skill  with  which  he  has  imparted  to 
written  language  a  large  portion  of  the  swing  and  rush  of 
spoken  oratory.  He  can  be  read  with  a  good  deal  of  the 
pleasurable  excitement  which  numbers  of  people  feel  in 
listening  to  facile  and  voluble  discourse.  As  a  rule,  copi- 
ous and  fluent  oratory  makes  very  bad  reading ;  but  Ma- 
caulay had  the  secret  of  transposing  his  thoughts  from  the 
language  of  spoken  discourse,  which  seems  their  proper 
vehicle,  to  the  language  of  written  prose,  without  loss  of 
effect.  To  no  one  talent,  perhaps,  does  he  owe  so  much 
of  his  reputation.  The  more  refined  and  delicate  literary 
styles  are  unpopular  in  proportion  to  their  excellence; 
their  harmonies  and  intervals,  fascinating  to  the  cultivated 
ear,  are  not  only  lost  on  but  somewhat  offensive  to  the 
multitude.  For  one  hearer  thrilled  by  a  sonata  or  a  fugue 
a  thousand  are  delighted  by  what  are  sometimes  called  the 
spirit-stirring  strains  of  Rule,  Britannia.  At  an  early  date 
Macaulay  gauged  the  popular  taste.  In  1830  he  wrote 
to  Macvey  Napier  complaining  that  some  of  the  "most 
pointed  and  ornamental  sentences  "  in  an  article  had  been 
omitted.  "Probably,"  he  continues,  "in  estimating  the 
real  value  of  any  tinsel  which  I  may  put  upon  my  articles, 
you  and  I  should  not  materially  differ.  But  it  is  not  by 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  69 

his  own  taste,  but  by  the  taste  of  the  fish,  that  the  angler 
is  determined  in  his  choice  of  bait."  It  would  be  unfair 
to  dwell  on  such  a  remark  in  a  private  letter,  if  it  stood 
alone.  But  all  his  practice  during  thirty  years  was  in 
unison  with  the  principle  here  laid  down.  Eschewing  high 
thought  on  the  one  hand,  and  deep  feeling  on  the  other, 
he  marched  down  a  middle  road  of  resonant  commonplace, 
quite  certain  that  where 

"  Bang,  whang,  whang,  goes  the  drum, 
And  tootle-tee-tootle  the  fife," 

the  densest  crowd,  marching  in  time,  will  follow  the  music. 
Still,  it  is  the  air  rather  than  the  instrument  which  makes 
some  persons  inclined  to  stop  their  ears.  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  measures  of  Macaulay's  prose  "are  emphatically 
the  measures  of  spoken  deliverance ;"  but  the  spoken  de- 
liverance is  of  the  Bar,  the  hustings,  or  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  want  of  benignity,  the  hard  and  scolding 
precision,  with  which  he  has  been  justly  reproached,  are 
due  rather  to  the  matter  and  substance  than  to  the  form 
of  his  speech.  His  tone  of  sentiment  is  such  as  would 
lose  nothing  by  being  uttered  in  a  loud  voice  at  a  public 
meeting,  and  he  is,  indeed,  far  from  reaching  the  highest 
notes  of  solemn  elevation  and  simple  pathos  with  which 
such  an  audience  inspires  some  orators.  But  neither  in 
public  nor  in  private  had  Macaulay  any  gift  for  expressing 
either  tender  or  lofty  emotion.  His  letters  are  singularly 
wanting  in  effusion  and  expansiveness,  even  when  address- 
ed to  friends  and  relatives  for  whom  we  know  he  had 
warm  affection.  But  his  love  took  the  form  of  solid 
matter-of-fact  kindness,  not  of  a  sympathy  in  delicate 
unison  with  another  spirit  with  whom  an  interchange  of 
sentiment  is  a  need  of  existence.  He  seems  to  have  been 
E 


60  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

one  of  those  thoroughly  good-hearted,  good-natured  persons 
who  are  wanting  in  tact,  delicacy,  and  sensitiveness.1  A 
certain  coarseness  of  fibre  is  unmistakable.  Nothing  else 
will  account  for  the  "mean  and  ignoble  association"  of 
ideas,  which  he  often  seems  rather  to  seek  than  avoid. 
He  prefers  comparisons  which,  by  their  ungraduated, 
unsoftened  abruptness,  produce  a  shock  on  nerves  less 
robust  than  his  own.  "The  victuallers  soon  found  out 
with  whom  they  had  to  deal,  and  sent  down  to  the  fleet 
casks  of  meat  which  dogs  would  not  touch,  and  barrels  of 
beer  which  smelt  worse  than  bilge-water."  Nothing  is 
gained  by  such  crudity  of  language ;  and  truth  is  sacri- 
ficed, if  that  is  a  consideration.  Dogs  have  no  objection 
to  tainted  meat,  and  nothing  can  smell  worse  than  bilge- 
water.  "  For  our  part,  if  we  are  forced  to  make  our  choice 
between  the  first  shoemaker  and  the  author  of  the  three 

1  He  was  benevolent,  but  unsympathetic;  he  cared  not  for  the 
beauty  of  nature,  he  detested  dogs,  and,  except  a  narrow  group  of 
relations  and  friends,  he  cared  not  for  men.  One  of  the  least  pleas- 
ant  passages  in  his  biography  is  a  scene  he  had  with  an  Italian  cus- 
tom-house officer,  who  asked  to  be  allowed  a  seat  in  his  carriage 
from  Velletri  to  Mola.  Macaulay  refused.  Of  this  there  is  nothing 
to  be  said ;  the  man  may  easily  have  been  an  undesirable  companion. 
But  the  comment  on  the  incident  is  wanting  in  the  right  tone :  "  I 
gave  him  three  crowns  not  to  plague  by  searching  my  baggage.  .  .  . 
He  pocketed  the  three  crowns,  but  looked  very  dark  and  sullen  at 
my  refusal  to  accept  his  company.  Precious  fellow !  to  think  that 
a  public  functionary  to  whom  a  little  silver  is  a  bribe,  is  fit  company 
for  an  English  gentleman."  Narrow  and  unintelligent.  In  mere 
knowledge  Macaulay  could  certainly  have  derived  much  more  from 
the  man  than  the  latter  from  Macaulay.  But  he  had  little  curiosity 
or  interest  in  the  minds  of  others.  It  will  be  remembered  in  what 
isolation  he  spent  his  time  on  the  voyage  to  India:  "Except  at 
meals,  I  hardly  exchanged  a  word  with  any  human  being."  One 
cannot  imagine  Socrates  or  Johnson  acting  thus. 


IL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  61 

books  on  Anger,  we  pronounce  for  the  shoemaker;"  and 
one  may  add,  you  are  certain  to  gain  the  gallery's  applause 
by  so  doing.  "  To  the  seared  consciences  of  Shaftesbury 
and  Buckingham  the  death  of  an  innocent  man  gave  no 
more  uneasiness  than  the  death  of  a  partridge."  "  A  hus- 
band would  be  justly  derided  who  should  bear  from  a 
wife  of  exalted  rank  and  spotless  virtue  half  the  insolence 
which  the  King  of  England  bore  from  concubines  who, 
while  they  owed  everything  to  his  bounty,  caressed  his 
courtiers  almost  before  his  face."  Sentences  like  these,  in 
which  the  needless  emphasis  of  the  words  shows  up  the 
more  plainly  the  deficient  dignity  and  weight  of  thought, 
are  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  deprive  Macaulay's  prose  of 
the  high  quality  of  distinction.  His  comparison  of  Mon- 
tesquieu with  the  learned  pig  and  musical  infant  is  in  the 
same  style.  But  perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  of  his 
tendency  to  a  low-pitched  strain  of  allusion  is  to  be  found 
in  his  journal,  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  Dumbarton 
Castle  in  the  last  year  of  his  life :  "  I  remember  my  first 
visit  to  Dumbarton,  and  the  old  minister  who  insisted  on 
our  eating  a  bit  of  cake  with  him,  and  said  a  grace  over  it 
which  might  have  been  prologue  to  a  dinner  at  the  Fish- 
mongers' Company  or  the  Grocers'  Company."  The  no- 
tion that  the  size  and  sumptuousness  of  a  feast  are  to  de- 
termine the  length  and  fervour  of  the  thanksgiving  is  one 
which  one  hardly  expects  to  find  outside  of  the  Common 
Council,  if  even  it  is  to  be  met  with  there.  Macaulay's  utter 
inability  to  comprehend  piety  of  mind  is  one  of  the  most 
singular  traits  in  his  character,  considering  his  antecedents. 
Macaulay's  style,  apart  from  its  content,  presents  one 
or  two  interesting  problems  which  one  would  like  to 
solve.  An  able  critic  has  noticed  the  singular  fact  that, 
though  he  seems  to  take  pains  to  be  pleonastic  and  re- 


62  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

dundant,  he  is  nevertheless  invariably  lively.1  His  varia- 
tions of  one  tune  do  not  weary,  as  one  might  expect.  In 
the  same  way,  the  oratorical  swing  and  rapidity  which 
he  undoubtedly  possesses  do  not  appear  easy  to  reconcile 
with  his  short  sentences  and  the  mechanically  regular 
stroke  of  his  periods.  His  paragraphs  are  often  built  up 
by  a  succession  of  tiers,  one  over  the  other ;  they  do  not 
seem  to  grow  from  a  central  root  of  thought  or  senti- 
ment. Sentences  not  exceeding  a  line  in  average  length, 
reduced  to  their  lowest  terms  of  subject,  predicate,  and 
copula,  are  held  together  only  by  the  art  of  the  typog- 
rapher. "The  people  of  Gloucester  rose,  and  delivered 
Lovelace  from  confinement.  An  irregular  army  soon 
gathered  around  him.  Some  of  his  horsemen  had  only 
halters  for  bridles.  Many  of  his  infantry  had  only  clubs 
for  weapons."  The  monotony  of  rhythm  is  sometimes  re- 
enforced  by  the  monotony  of  phrase,  sentence  after  sentence 
beginning  with  the  same  words ;  as,  for  instance,  this  con- 
clusion of  the  JSssay  on  Lord  Holland: 

"  The  time  is  coming  when,  perhaps,  a  few  old  men,  the  last  sur- 
vivors of  our  generation,  will  in  vain  seek,  amidst  new  streets,  and 
squares,  and  railway -stations,  for  the  sight  of  that  dwelling  which 
was  in  their  youth  the  favourite  resort  of  wits  and  beauties  —  of 
painters  and  poets — of  scholars,  philosophers,  and  statesmen.  They 
will  then  remember,  with  strange  tenderness,  many  objects  once  fa- 
miliar to  them — the  avenue  and  the  terrace,  the  busts  and  the  paint- 
ings ;  the  carving,  the  grotesque  gilding,  and  the  enigmatic  mottoes. 
With  peculiar  fondness  tluy  will  recall  that  venerable  chamber,  in 
which  all  the  antique  gravity  of  a  college  library  was  so  singularly 
blended  with  all  that  female  grace  and  wit  could  devise  to  embellish 
a  drawing-room.  Tliey  will  recollect,  not  unmoved,  those  shelves  load- 
ed with  the  varied  learning  of  many  lands  and  many  ages;  those 
portraits  hi  which  were  preserved  the  features  of  the  best  and  wisest 

1  Hours  in  a  Library,  by  L.  Stephen,  3rd  series. 


XL]  CHARACTERISTICS.  63 

Englishmen  of  two  generations.  They  will  recollect  how  many  men 
who  have  guided  the  politics  of  Europe — who  have  moved  great  as- 
semblies by  reason  and  eloquence — who  have  put  life  into  bronze 
and  canvas,  or  who  have  left  to  posterity  things  so  written  as  it  shall 
not  willingly  let  them  die — were  there  mixed  with  all  that  was  love- 
liest and  gayest  in  the  society  of  the  most  splendid  of  capitals.  They 
will  remember  the  singular  character  which  belonged  to  that  circle  in 
which  every  talent  and  accomplishment,  every  art  and  science,  had  its 
place.  They  will  remember  how  the  last  debate  was  discussed  in  one 
corner,  and  the  last  comedy  of  Scribe  in  another ;  while  Wilkie  gazed 
with  modest  admiration  on  Reynolds's  Baretti ;  while  Mackintosh 
turned  over  Thomas  Aquinas  to  verify  a  quotation ;  while  Talleyrand 
related  his  conversations  with  Barras  at  the  Luxemburg,  or  his  rides 
with  Lannes  over  the  field  of  Austerlitz.  They  will  remember,  above 
all,  the  grace — and  the  kindness,  far  more  admirable  than  grace — 
with  which  the  princely  hospitality  of  that  ancient  mansion  was 
dispensed.  They  will  remember  the  venerable  and  benignant  counte- 
nance and  the  cordial  voice  of  him  who  bade  them  welcome.  They 
will  remember  that 'temper  which  years  of  pain,  of  sickness,  of  lame- 
ness, of  confinement,  seemed  only  to  make  sweeter  and  sweeter ;  and 
that  frank  politeness,  which  at  once  relieved  all  the  embarrassment 
of  the  youngest  and  most  timid  writer  or  artist  who  found  himself 
for  the  first  time  among  ambassadors  and  earls.  They  will  remem- 
ber that  constant  flow  of  conversation,  so  natural,  so  animated,  so 
various,  so  rich  with  observation  and  anecdote ;  that  wit  which  never 
gave  a  wound ;  that  exquisite  mimicry  which  ennobled,  instead  of 
degrading,  that  goodness  of  heart  which  appeared  in  every  look  and 
accent,  and  gave  additional  value  to  every  talent  and  acquirement. 
They  will  remember,  too,  that  he  whose  name  they  hold  in  reverence 
was  not  less  distinguished  by  the  inflexible  uprightness  of  his  polit- 
ical conduct  than  by  his  loving  disposition  and  winning  manners. 
They  will  remember  that  in  the  last  lines  which  he  traced  he  ex- 
pressed his  joy  that  he  had  done  nothing  unworthy  of  the  friend  of 
Fox  and  Grey ;  and  they  will  have  reason  to  feel  similar  joy,  if,  in 
looking  back  on  many  troubled  years,  they  cannot  accuse  themselves 
of  having  done  anything  unworthy  of  men  who  were  ^distinguished 
by  the  friendship  of  Lord  Holland." 

If  the  light  of  nature  and   an  ordinary  ear  were  not 


64  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

sufficient  to  warn  a  writer  against  such  repetition,  Ma- 
caulay,  who  had  read  his  Aristotle  and  Quinctilian,  might 
have  been  expected  to  know  better.  "  The  qualities  and 
artifices  of  style  which  tell  in  declamation,  for  which  they 
were  intended,  when  divested  of  this  aid  do  not  fulfil 
their  proper  function ;  as,  for  instance,  asyndeta  and  the 
reiteration  of  the  same  word;  and  though  the  orators 
employ  them  in  their  debates,  as  adapted  to  delivery,  in 
the  written  style  they  appear  silly,  and  are  justly  rep- 
robated"1 Indeed,  Macaulay  never  quite  overcame  a  ten- 
dency to  abuse  this  common  and  useful  rhetorical  figure  in 
an  order  of  composition  for  which  it  is  unfit.  It  is  to 
be  found  in  the  first  page  of  his  History,  and  is  so  com- 
mon in  his  Essays,  that  their  style  is  very  often  identical 
with  that  of  his  speeches. 

The  art  by  which  Macaulay  has  caused  these  various 
blemishes  not  only  to  be  condoned,  but  to  be  entirely 
unperceived,  by  the  majority  of  readers  is  derived  from 
the  imaginative  power  and  splendour  of  his  larger  tab- 
leaux. The  sentences  may  be  aggregates  of  atoms,  but 
the  whole  is  confluent,  and  marked  by  masterly  unity. 
Style  may  be  considered  from  more  than  one  aspect. 
We  may  consider  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  gram- 
marian or  professor  of  rhetoric,  with  reference  mainly  to 
the  choice  of  words,  the  propriety  of  phrase,  the  rhythm 
of  sentence.  Or  we  may  consider  it  from  the  higher 
stand-point — the  general  effect  and  impressiveness  of  the 
whole  composition ;  the  pervading  power,  lucidity,  and 
coherence,  which  make  a  book  attractive  to  read  and  easy 
to  master.  In  the  former  class  of  qualities  Macaulay 
leaves  much  to  be  desired.  In  the  latter  he  has  not  many 
superiors.  Artless,  and  almost  clumsy  as  he  is  in  build- 
1  Cope's  Introduction  to  Aristotle's  Rhetoric,  p.  326. 


ii.J  CHARACTERISTICS.  65 

lug  a  sentence,  into  which  he  is  without  the  skill  to 
weave,  as  some  moderns  do, 

"Those  lesser  thirds  so  plaintive,  sixths  diminished  sigh  on  sigh," 

in  building  a  chapter,  an  article,  or  a  book  he  has  a  grand 
and  easy  power  which  ought  "to  bring  the  sweat  into  the 
brow"  of  some  who  hold  him  cheap.  His  short  sen- 
tences, when  looked  at  by  themselves  so  isolated  and  thin, 
are  the  lines  of  a  fine  engraving  all  converging  to  pro- 
duce one  well-considered  artistic  effect — an  effect  in  which 
neither  deep  thought  nor  high  feeling  has  a  share,  but 
still  one  so  brilliant  and  striking  that  the  criticism  which 
overlooks  it  may  justly  be  accused  of  blindness. 


CHAPTER   IE. 


WE  sometimes  hear  Macaulay's  Essays  preferred  to  Ms 
History,  not  only  as  more  popular,  but  as  showing  more 
genius  and  power.  Although  this  opinion  could  hardly 
be  held  by  any  serious  critic,  it  contains  enough  truth  to 
make  its  existence  intelligible.  The  Essays  have  quali- 
ties of  variety,  freedom,  and,  above  all,  brevity,  which  the 
History  is  necessarily  without,  but  which  are  very  taking 
qualities  with  the  readers  whom  Macaulay  chiefly  ad- 
dresses. A  long-sustained  work  devoted  to  the  history 
of  otie  country  in  one  period,  however  lively  it  may  be 
made,  demands  a  heavier  tax  on  the  attention  than  many 
are  able  to  pay.  The  large  and  ever-growing  class  who 
read,  not  for  knowledge  but  for  amusement,  as  an  in- 
nocent mode  of  killing  time,  soon  become  weary  of  one 
subject  carried  on  through  several  volumes.  Their  weak 
mental  appetite  needs  stimulating  by  a  frequent  change 
of  diet.  Length  is  the  one  thing  they  fear  and  most  dis- 
like. To  take  up  the  same  work  day  after  day  oppresses 
them  with  the  sense  of  a  task,  and  they  promptly  con- 
ceive an  ill-will  to  the  author  for  not  keeping  pace  with 
their  changes  of  mood.  Even  the  highest  works  of 
poetical  genius — the  Faery  Queen  and  Paradise  Lost — 
are  said  to  be  comparatively  neglected,  simply  on  account 


CHAP,  in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  67 

of  their  volume,  which  alarms  the  indolence  of  readers. 
And  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  even  Shakspeare 
does  not  owe  a  great  deal  of  his  popularity  with  the  read- 
ing public  to  the  fact  that  plays  are  necessarily  short,  and 
can  be  read  through  in  a  short  time. 

To  readers  of  this  temper — and  they  probably  are  a  vast 
majority — essays  offer  the  very  thing-  they  are  in  search  of. 
No  strain  on  the  attention,  frequent  change  of  subject,  a 
happy  medium  between  undue  length  and  undue  brevity, 
are  qualities  exactly  suited  to  their  taste.  This  alone 
might  well  be  the  sole  or  chief  reason  why  Macaulay's 
Essays  should  be  by  some  preferred  to  his  History.  But 
this  is  probably  not  the  only  reason.  The  Essays  have 
some  merits  which  the  History  lacks.  They  were  all  writ- 
ten in  the  vigour  of  life,  before  his  mind  was  saddened, 
if  not  enfeebled,  by  serious  ill-health.  They  were  short 
enough  to  be  struck  off  at  a  heat,  and  many,  we  know, 
were  written  with  extreme  rapidity.  They  consequently 
have  the  attractive  quality  of  exuberant  vigour,  high  spir- 
its, and  conscious  strength  which  delights  in  exercise  and 
rapid  motion  for  their  own  sake.  A  sense  of  weariness  in 
the  writer,  however  much  it  may  be  concealed  by  art,  is 
almost  sure  to  be  felt  by  the  reader  sympathetically.  Of 
this  drawback  few  authors  ever  knew  less  than  Macaulay 
up  to  the  time  of  his  illness.  His  prompt  and  full  com- 
mand of  his  faculties  made,  as  he  said,  composition  noth- 
ing but  a  pleasure  to  him.  No  man  ever  worshipped  a 
more  bountiful  muse.  He  had  no  labour  pains,  no  dark 
wrestlings  with  thoughts  which  he  could  not  throw,  con- 
quered and  subdued,  with  vigorous  strength  down  on  paper. 
His  Essays,  therefore,  in  many  ways  much  less  finished  and 
careful,  have  often  more  verve  than  the  History.  Like  the 
first  flight  of  the  falcon,  they  show  a  store  of  unsubdued 
4 


68  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

energy,  which,  so  far  from  fearing  fatigue,  rather  seeks  it, 
and  does  not  readily  find  it. 

The  originality  of  form  and  treatment  which  Macaulay 
gave  to  the  historical  essay  has  not,  perhaps,  received  due 
recognition.  Without  having  invented  it,  he  so  greatly 
expanded  and  improved  it  that  he  deserves  nearly  as  much 
credit  as  if  he  had.  He  did  for  the  historical  essay  what 
Haydn  did  for  the  sonata,  and  Watt  for  the  steam-engine : 
he  found  it  rudimentary  and  unimportant,  and  left  it  com- 
plete and  a  thing  of  power.  Before  his  time  there  was 
the  ponderous  history  —  generally  in  quarto  —  and  there 
was  the  antiquarian  dissertation.  There  was  also  the  his- 
torical review,  containing  alternate  pages  of  extract  and 
comment — generally  rather  dull  and  gritty.  But  the  his- 
torical essay  as  he  conceived  it,  and  with  the  prompt  inspi- 
ration of  a  real  discoverer  immediately  put  into  practical 
shape,  was  as  good  as  unknown  before  him.  To  take  a 
bright  period  or  personage  of  history,  to  frame  it  in  a  firm 
outline,  to  conceive  it  at  once  in  article-size,  and  then  to 
fill  in  this  limited  canvas  with  sparkling  anecdote,  telling 
bits  of  colour,  and  facts  all  fused  together  by  a  real  genius 
for  narrative,  was  the  sort  of  genre-painting  which  Macau- 
lay  applied  to  history.  We  have  only  to  turn  to  the  back 
numbers  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  to  perceive  how  his  ar. 
tides  gleam  in  those  old  pages  of  "  gray  paper  and  blunt 
type."  And  to  this  day  his  Essays  remain  the  best  of 
their  class,  not  only  in  England  but  in  Europe.  Slight,  or 
even  trivial,  in  the  field  of  historical  erudition  and  critical 
inquiry,  they  are  masterpieces,  if  regarded  in  the  light  of 
great  popular  cartoons  on  subjects  taken  from  modern 
history.  They  are  painted,  indeed,  with  such  freedom, 
vividness,  and  power,  that  they  may  be  said  to  enjoy  a  sort 
of  tacit  monopoly  of  the  periods  and  characters  to  which 


ra.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  69 

they  refer,  in  the  estimation  of  the  general  public.  How 
many  persons,  outside  the  class  of  professed  students,  know 
much  of  Lord  Chatham,  Lord  Clive,  Warren  Hastings,  Wai- 
pole,  Pulteney,  Carteret,  and  many  more,  beyond  what  they 
learn  from  the  pages  of  Macaulay  ?  His  friend  Lord  Stan- 
hope is  a  much  more  safe,  steady,  and  trustworthy  guide 
through  the  eighteenth  century.  But  for  one  reader  who 
will  sit  down  to  the  accurate,  conscientious,  ill-written  His- 
tory of  England  by  Lord  Stanhope,  a  hundred  will  read, 
and  read  again,  the  brilliant  Essays.  Any  portion  of  Eng- 
lish history  which  Macaulay  has  travelled  over — the  remark 
applies  much  less  to  his  treatment  of  foreign  subjects — is 
found  to  be  moulded  into  a  form  which  the  average  Eng- 
lishman at  once  enjoys  and  understands.  He  did,  it  has 
been  truly  said,  in  a  small  way,  and  in  solid  prose,  the 
same  thing  for  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
that  Shakspeare  did  in  a  poetical  way  for  the  fifteenth 
century.  The  first  Duke  of  Marlborough  had  the  candour 
to  acknowledge  that  all  he  knew  of  the  history  of  England 
he  derived  from  Shakspeare's  historical  plays.  We  may 
surmise  that  many  who  would  not  readily  confess  it  are 
equally  indebted  to  Macaulay.  He  succeeded  in  achieving 
the  object  which  he  always  professed  to  aim  at — making 
history  attractive  and  interesting — to  a  degree  never  at- 
tained before.  This  is  either  a  merit  or  a  fault,  according 
to  the  point  of  view  from  which  we  regard  it;  but  from 
every  point  of  view  it  was  no  common  feat. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  classify  the  Essays  in  the  fol- 
lowing groups,  with  the  object  of  giving  as  much  unity  as 
possible  to  a  subject  necessarily  wanting  it : 

(1.)  English  history.       (3.)  Controversial. 

(2.)  Foreign  history.       (4.)  Critical  and  miscellaneous. 


70  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

English  History  Group.1  —  If  the  articles  composing 
this  group  are  arranged  with  reference  to  the  chronol- 
ogy of  the  periods  they  treat  of,  they  form  a  fairly  com- 
plete survey  of  English  history  from  the  time  of  Eliza- 
beth to  the  later  years  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  This 
was  the  portion  of  our  history  to  which  Macaulay  had  de- 
voted most  time  and  attention.  The  period  previous  to 
the  Reformation  he  had  studied  with  much  less  care.  His 
acquaintance  with  the  Middle  Age  generally  may  without 
injustice  be  pronounced  slight ;  and  though  well  informed 
as  to  the  history  of  the  Continent,  his  knowledge  of  it,  as 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  see,  was  not  so  accurate  or  deep. 
But  his  knowledge  of  English  history  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  was  minute,  extensive,  and  pro- 
found. These  twelve  essays  may  be  regarded  as  prelimi- 
nary studies,  by  which  he  preluded  and  prepared  himself 
for  his  great  work.  Nothing  can  be  more  obvious  than 
that  the  historical  student  was  guided  in  his  choice  of  this 
field  by  the  sympathies  and  opinions  of  the  active  poli- 
tician. He  was  a  Whig,  with  ardent  and  disinterested 
conviction,  when  to  be  a  Whig  was  to  be  a  friend  of 
liberty  and  progress  in  the  most  rational  and  practical 
form.  During  the  long  predominance  of  Tory  rule  and 
sentiment  the  heroic  age  of  England  had  been  defaced, 
«ind  perverted  into  a  hideous  and  malignant  caricature. 
A  vigorous  vindication  of  English  liberty  in  the  past 
allied  itself  naturally,  in  the  pages  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  with  the  active  polemics  there  carried  on  in  fa- 
vour of  the  same  liberty  in  the  present.  It  was  not  as  an 
antiquarian  that  Macaulay  insisted  upon  a  new  hearing  of 
the  great  cause  in  which  Charles  L,  Strafford,  and  Laud 

1  Burleigh,  Hallam,  Hampden,  Milton,  Temple,  Mackintosh,  Wai- 
pole,  Pitt-Chatham,  Clive,  Warren  Hastings. 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  11 

appeared  on  the  one  side,  against  Harapden,  Pym,  and 
Cromwell  on  the  other,  but  as  the  active  member  of 
Parliament,  who  supported  the  first  Reform  Bill  with 
five  powerful  speeches  in  one  year.  He  attacked  Tory- 
ism indirectly,  by  writing  on  the  great  Liberal  leaders  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  as  the  Reform- 
ers attacked  Catholicism  by  writing  on  the  primitive  dis- 
cipline and  doctrine  of  the  Early  Church.  When  writing 
of  the  Long  Parliament  or  the  Revolution  an  implied  ref- 
erence is  always  visible  to  the  Whigs  and  Tories  of  his 
own  day.  Sometimes  the  reference  to  contemporary  poli- 
tics is  open,  and  direct,  as  when,  in  the  midst  of  his  discus- 
sion of  the  conduct  of  the  Parliamentary  leaders  headed 
by  Hampden,  he  makes  a  sudden  and  telling  allusion  to  the 
contemporary  condition  of  Spain  under  Ferdinand  VIL 
(Memorials  of  Hampden). 

The  party  character  of  Macaulay's  Essays  on  English 
history  is  neither  to  be  denied  nor  deplored.  That  he 
rendered  a  great  political  service  to  the  cause  of  Liberal- 
ism cannot  be  doubted,  and  every  deduction  that  may  be 
made  from  the  merit  of  the  historian  must  be  set  down 
to  the  account  of  the  publicist.  Scientific  history  was 
never  his  object,  but  the  propagation  of  sound  constitu- 
tional doctrine  was  very  much  so.  It  has  been  said  with 
truth  that,  in  all  he  ever  wrote,  a  defence  open  or  implied 
of  Whig  principles  may  be  perceived.  That  this  connex- 
ion of  his  work  with  the  ephemeral  politics  of  the  day 
will  injure  its  permanent  value  is  very  obvious ;  but  not, 
perhaps,  to  the  extent  that  is  sometimes  supposed. 

It  is  one  of  the  affectations  of  the  hour  to  use  the 
term  Whig  as  a  convenient  vehicle  of  polite  vituperation. 
A  man  who  can  now  with  any  accuracy  be  called  a  genuine 
old  Whig  is  by  some  persons  considered  to  be  beyond  the 


72  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

pale  of  toleration.  No  further  anathema  is  needed;  the 
deadliest  slur  has  been  cast  on  his  intellect  and  character 
in  one  word.  A  hatred  of  pure  reason,  and  a  comforta- 
ble middle-class  creed  on  social  matters,  are  the  two  most 
offensive  characteristics  generally  ascribed  to  the  Whig. 
They  would  be  offensive  enough  if  Whiggisin  was,  or 
pretended  to  be,  a  philosophical  theory  of  politics.  But 
in  Macaulay's  day  Whiggism  was  not  a  philosophy,  but 
a  scheme  of  practical  expediency — a  working  policy  which 
had  a  chance  of  being  realized.  What,  after  all,  is  the 
essence  of  Whiggism  as  distinct  from  its  accidents?  Is 
it  not  this:  illogical  but  practical  compromise  between 
two  extremes  which  are  logical  but  not  at  all  practical? 
It  is  no  isolated  phenomenon  confined  to  certain  periods 
of  English  history,  but  one  of  the  most  general  to  be 
found,  not  only  in  politics  but  in  religion,  and  even  philoso- 
phy. Wherever  men  are  engaged  in  steering  between  the 
opposite  shoals  of  extreme  parties  with  a  view  to  practical 
result,  there  Whiggism  exists  in  reality  if  not  in  name. 
Bossuet  was  a  Whig  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  Pascal 
was  a  Whig  in  the  Gallican  Church.  Reid,  Brown,  and 
Coleridge,  even  Kant,  were  Whigs  in  philosophy.  Whig- 
gism is  always  the  scorn  of  thorough-going  men  and  rigor- 
ous logicians ;  is  ever  stigmatized  as  a  bending  of  the  knee 
to  Baal.  But  thorough-going  men,  actuated  by  thorough- 
going logic,  do  not  often,  or  for  long,  remain  directors  of 
public  affairs.  No  man  was  ever  less  of  a  philosopher,  of 
more  of  a  politician,  than  Macaulay.  He  had  an  eye  to 
business,  not  to  abstract  truth.  The  present  age,  which 
sees  only  the  writer,  and  has  nearly  forgotten  the  poli- 
tician, is  easily  tempted  to  judge  him  by  a  standard  to 
which  he  did  not  and  could  not  conform.  His  own 
eerene  unconsciousness  of  his  want  of  speculative  power 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  73 

is  at  once  amusing  and  irritating.  But  the  point  to  be 
remembered  is,  that  when  we  have  written  Whig  after 
his  name,  and  declared  they  are  convertible  terms,  all  is 
not  said  and  done,  and  that,  for  purposes  of  criticism, 
the  process  is  too  simple  and  summary  to  be  of  much 
value.  We  have  to  consider  the  object  at  which  he 
aimed,  not  to  complain  of  his  failure  to  hit  a  mark  which 
he  never  thought  of.  A  man  engaged  in  paving  the  best 
via  media  that  he  can  find  between  ultra  opinions  on  op- 
posite sides  is  always  exposed  to  taunt.  Macaulay  was  re- 
viled by  Chartists  and  Churchmen,  and  he  himself  disliked 
high  Tories  and  philosophical  Radicals  in  equal  measure. 
When  the  object  is  to  gain  votes  for  practical  measures 
the  beauties  of  pure  reason  are  apt  to  be  overlooked. 
The  great  maxim  of  prudence  on  these  occasions  is,  "  not 
to  go  too  far"  in  any  direction.  Logic  and  consistency 
are  readily  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  union  in  action. 
Closet  philosophers  naturally  resent  this  as  very  mean 
and  commonplace.  But  that  is  because  they  are  closet 
philosophers. 

The  party  bias  of  the  Essays,  it  is  said,  deprives  them 
of  all  value  as  history.  And  this  is  partly  true.  But  let 
us  be  just  even  to  party  historians.  When  it  is  claimed 
that  the  historian  must  above  all  things  be  impartial,  what 
is  meant  by  the  word  ?  Is  it  demanded  that  the  writer  on 
a  past  age  is  to  take  no  side — to  have  no  preference,  either 
for  persons  whom  he  considers  virtuous,  or  for  principles 
which  he  considers  just ;  and,  again,  is  he  to  have  no  rep- 
robation for  the  contraries  to  these,  which  he  considers 
unjust  and  pernicious  ?  If  this  is  meant  by  impartiality, 
the  answer  is,  that  ^  on  these  lines  history  cannot  be,  and 
never  has  been,  written.  Such  is  the  solidarity  of  human 
nature  that  it  refuses  to  regard  the  just  and  the  unjust 


74  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

with  equal  favour  in  the  past  any  more  than  in  the  pres- 
ent. Of  course  the  question  is  always  reserved  as  to  which 
party  in  the  suit  these  epithets  respectively  apply.  Erro- 
neous judgments  have  been  passed  in  the  court  of  history, 
as  they  are  passed  hi  courts  of  law.  But  that  is  no  argu- 
ment for  maintaining  that  both  sides  are  entitled  to  the 
same  favour  and  good-will.  Both  sides  are  entitled  to 
justice,  and  justice  may  require  the  utmost  severity  of 
condemnation  of  one  of  the  parties.  No  judge  at  the 
end  of  a  criminal  trial  was  ever  able  to  conceal  the  side 
to  which  he  inclined  in  his  summing  up.  His  business  is 
not  to  abstain  from  having  an  opinion — which  a  man  of 
intelligence  could  hardly  do — but  to  point  to  the  decisive 
evidence  on  either  side,  and,  holding  up  the  scales,  to  let 
the  lighter  kick  the  beam  in  the  eyes  of  all  men.  If  this 
is  partiality,  it  is  such  as  no  honest  man  would  like  to  be 
without.  So  the  historian  :  his  duty  is  to  be  impartial  in 
weighing  evidence ;  but  that  being  done,  to  declare  with 
unmistakable  clearness  which  side  has  been  found  want- 
ing. As  he  is  human,  he  is  exposed  to  error,  but  for  that 
there  is  no  remedy.  Miscarriages  of  justice  must  and  will 
occur.  They  must  be  redressed  when  discovered.  And, 
fortunately,  errors  of  this  kind  are  of  less  grave  practical 
consequence  in  the  courts  of  history  than  in  the  courts  of 
law.  Yet  we  submit  to  the  latter,  being  unable  to  help 
ourselves.  It  is  vain  to  hope  that  this  subjective  bias  can 
ever  be  removed  from  the  mind  of  a  human  judge.  And 
it  is  not  desirable  to  remove  it.  What  is  worthy  of  blame 
is  the  suppression  or  garbling  of  evidence — not  holding 
really  true  scales.  The  notion  that  such  bias  is  necessari- 
ly connected  with  the  party-spirit  of  modern  times,  and 
shown  only  in  reference  to  modern  periods  of  history,  is 
quite  without  foundation.  The  history  of  Greece  and 


m.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  75 

Rome  is  subject  to  it  as  much  as  the  history  of  Modern 
Europe.  Mitford  was  biassed  in  favour  of  the  oligarchies 
of  Greece.  Grote  was  equally  biassed  in  favour  of  the 
democracies.  So  far  each  was  within  his  right.  But  if 
it  appears  that  either  was  unfair  in  collecting  and  sifting 
evidence,  and  showed  anxiety  to  win  a  verdict  by  his  mis- 
presentation  of  it,  then  he  is  to  be  condemned  as  an  un- 
just judge — or,  rather,  he  is  an  advocate  who  has  usurped 
a  judge's  functions  and  merits  degradation.  Mitford  has 
been  deposed,  and  justly  so.  in  the  opinion  of  competent 
men.  Grote,  on  the  whole,  has  been  maintained  by  the 
same  opinion. 

Further,  if  we  grant  that  historians  are  exposed  to  pe- 
culiar temptations  to  slide  from  the  position  of  judge  to 
that  of  advocate — if  they  are  honest  advocates,  maintain- 
ing the  cause  they  believe  to  be  just,  by  honourable  means, 
they  need  not  fear  much  censure  from  equitable  men.  The 
final  judge,  after  all,  is  public  opinion — not  of  a  day,  or  a 
year,  or  even  of  a  century,  but  of  ages.  Perhaps  it  can 
never  be  absolutely  obtained.  But  in  the  mean  while  noth- 
ing is  more  serviceable  to  the  cause  of  truth  than  that 
every  important  party  to  an  historical  suit  should  be  repre- 
sented by  the  ablest  advocate  that  can  be  found,  so  long 
as  he  is  honest — that  is,  not  only  refrains  from  telling  lies, 
but  from  suppressing  truth.  Every  open-minded  inquirer 
must  be  glad  to  hear  all  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of  a 
given  side ;  nay,  to  hear  most  of  all  what  can  be  said  in 
favour  of  the  side  to  which  he  himself  does  not  belong. 
It  is  vastly  more  comforting  to  hear  Dr.  Lingard  condemn 
James  II.  of  injustice,  infatuation,  arbitrary  and  impotent 
policy,  than  to  hear  the  most  eloquent  indictments  of  the 
same  monarch  from  those  who  hold  Whig  opinions.  When 
Hume  condemns  Charles  I.  for  the  arrest  of  the  five  Mem- 
F  4* 


76  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

bers,  we  feel  quite  sure  that  on  that  point  at  least  nothing 
can  be  said,  or  such  an  able,  not  to  say  unscrupulous,  ad- 
vocate would  not  have  omitted  it.  In  time  the  heats  of 
party  zeal  are  gradually  cooled ;  questions  of  disputed  fact 
are  reduced  to  narrow  issues.  The  motives  and  characters 
of  the  most  prominent  actors  are  at  last  weighed  by  impar- 
tial men,  who  have  no  interest  stronger  in  the  matter  than 
the  discovery  of  truth.  Then  we  have  reached  the  critical 
stage  of  history. 

Macaulay  was  far  from  having  reached  this  higher  stage. 
But  as  a  writer  of  party  history  he  stands  high.  If  his 
mind  was  uncritical,  his  temper  was  generally  fair.  No  one 
would  expect  the  party  against  whom  he  appeared — the 
sympathizers  with  high  prerogative  as  against  the  sympa- 
thizers with  liberty — to  admit  this.  But  his  Whig  version 
of  our  history  has  been,  on  the  whole,  accepted  by  a  wide 
public,  with  whom  political  partisanship  is  not  a  strong  pas- 
sion. His  frank  avowal  of  his  sympathies  can  be  a  defect 
only  in  the  eyes  of  the  unintelligent,  or  the  bigoted  who  will 
brook  no  contradiction.  His  bias  is  open  and  above-board ; 
he  lays  his  proofs  before  you,  which  you  may  accept  or 
refuse,  but  in  a  candid  way — very  different  from  the  sly, 
subtle  disingenuousness  of  Hume.  At  the  same  time  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  common  fate  of  controversialists 
is  already  beginning  to  overtake  Macaulay.  His  point  of 
view  is  already  somewhat  out  of  date.  We  are  always  re- 
pelled, or  disdainfully  amused,  by  the  heats  of  a  remote 
controversy  which  does  not  touch  our  passions  or  interests. 
It  seems  absurd  to  be  so  angry  with  people  who  lived  so 
long  ago,  and  who  clearly  never  did  us  any  harm.  Tho 
suave  mari  magno  feeling  is  a  little  ungenerous,  but 
very  natural  and  common.  A  critic  complains  that 
Macaulay  "mauls  poor  James  II."  as  he  did  the  Tories 


ni.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  77 

of  1832.  It  no  doubt  requires  an  historical  imagination 
of  some  liveliness  to  make  us  perceive  that  pity  is  wasted 
on  a  sovereign  whose  wickedness  was  only  defeated  by 
his  folly.  We  are  in  no  danger  of  being  tried  and  brow- 
beaten by  Jeffreys  or  hanged  by  Colonel  Kirke.  Such  are 
the  gratitude  and  the  "  little  short  memories  "  of  mankind. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  a  true  instinct  which  warns  us  against 
transferring  the  passions  of  the  present  to  the  remote  past. 
The  passions  should  be  quiet,  only  the  critical  reason 
should  be  active,  surveying  the  concluded  story  with  calm 
width,  and  telling  us  what  it  all  amounted  to. 

It  will  not  be  expected  that  all  Macaulay's  Essays 
should  be  passed  in  review  in  a  short  work  of  this  kind. 
We  can  only  find  space  for  a  few  words  on  the  most 
memorable,  omitting  the  less  famous  as  we  pass  over  the 
relatively  unimportant  pictures  in  a  gallery. 

The  Essays,  as  might  well  be  supposed,  are  unequal  in 
merit.  One  of  the  weakest  is  that  which  appears  first  on 
the  list  given  a  few  pages  back,  Burleigh  and  his  Times. 
It  is  at  once  thin  and  trenchant,  and  would  be  wholly  un- 
deserving of  notice  did  it  not  contain  a  faulty  historical 
view,  which  Macaulay  never  laid  aside  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  The  error  consists  in  fastening  the  odium  of  perse- 
cution and  tolerance  as  a  peculiar  reproach  on  the  Govern- 
ment of  Burleigh  and  Elizabeth.  "  What  can  be  said  in 
defence  of  a  ruler  who  is  at  once  indifferent  and  intoler- 
ant?" he  asks.  If  the  Queen  had  only  had  the  virtue 
and  enlightenment  of  More  and  L'Hospital,  the  whole  of 
our  history  for  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  would 
have  worn  another  colour.  "  She  had  the  happiest  op- 
portunity ever  vouchsafed  to  any  sovereign  of  establishing 
perfect  freedom  of  conscience  throughout  her  dominions, 
without  danger  to  her  Government,  without  scandal  to 


78  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

any  large  party  among  her  subjects."  Any  addition  to 
the  enlightenment  and  patience  of  the  capricious  vixen 
who  then  ruled  England  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  a 
great  boon  to  her  subjects  and  ministers,  but  it  is  sup- 
posing extraordinary  efficacy  even  in  the  virtue  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  imagine  that  it  could  have  influenced  our 
history  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  her  death. 
But  Macaulay  must  have  known  that  uniformity  in  religion 
was  considered  in  the  sixteenth  century  an  indispensable 
condition  of  stable  civil  government,  and  that  by  all  par- 
ties and  sects.  "  Persecution  for  religious  heterodoxy  in 
all  its  degrees  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  principle, 
as  well  as  the  practice,  of  every  church.  It  was  held  incon- 
sistent with  the  sovereignty  of  the  magistrate  to  permit 
any  religion  but  his  own ;  inconsistent  with  his  duty  to 
suffer  any  but  the  true."1  Bacon  said :  "  It  is  certain 
that  heresies  and  schisms  are  of  all  others  the  greatest 
scandals,  yea,  more  than  corruption  of  manners."8  It  is 
against  all  equity  to  blame  one  or  two  individuals  for  a 
universal  error.  Yet  Macaulay  constantly  dwells  on  the 
persecutions  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  as  if  they  were  marked 
by  peculiar  short-sightedness  and  malignity.  He  does  it 
in  the  essay  on  Hallam,  and  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
History,  though  in  less  peremptory  language.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  he  knew  the  facts  perfectly  well.  But, 
as  often  happened  with  him,  knowledge  did  not  mount  up 
into  luminous  general  views.  Persecution  had  long  been 
proved  to  be  bad ;  Elizabeth  persecuted  ;  therefore  she 
was  to  be  blamed.  The  temper  of  the  whole  age  is  not 
taken  into  the  account. 

The  article  on  HallanCs  Constitutional  History  is  one 

1  Hallam's  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  ii.  p.  343. 
*  Essay  iii. 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  79 

of  the  best.  It  is  one  of  the  most  strenuous  arguments 
tive  pieces  Macaulay  ever  wrote.  Fiercely  polemical  in  its 
assault  on  the  Tory  version  of  English  history,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  compendium  of  Whig  principles  in  usum 
populi.  Indeed,  its  opinions  are  somewhat  more  than 
Whig.  It  belongs  to  that  small  group  of  articles  which 
were  written  before  the  author  was  plunged  in  the  daily 
strife  of  politics  and  ceaseless  round  of  business  (the  oth- 
ers are  those  on  Milton,  Machiavelli,  and  History},  and 
they  show,  I  venture  to  think,  a  speculative  reach  and 
openness  of  mind  which  were  never  recovered  in  the  active 
life  of  subsequent  years.  The  vindication  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Cromwell  is  as  spirited  as  it  is  just,  and  really  gives 
the  outline  which  Carlyle  filled  in  many  years  after. 

The  article  on  the  Memorials  of  Hampden  is  graceful 
'and  touching.  The  tone  of  pious  reverence  for  the  great 
Puritan  champion  makes  it  one  of  his  most  harmonious 
pieces.  The  essay  on  Milton  is  only  remarkable  for  show- 
ing the  early  maturity  of  his  powers,  but  on  that  ground 
it  is  very  remarkable.  With  the  article  on  Sir  William 
Temple  we  enter  upon  a  new  stage  of  Macaulay's  develop- 
ment as  a  writer  and  an  artist.  The  articles  he  wrote  for 
the  Edinburgh  Review  after  his  return  from  India,  in 
1838,  are  markedly  superior  to  those  he  wrote  before 
leaving  England.  The  tone  is  much  quieter,  yet  the 
vivacity  is  not  diminished ;  the  composition  is  more 
careful,  sustained,  and  even.  The  Sir  William  Temple 
was  the  first  of  the  post-Indian  articles,  and  it  is  one  of 
the  best  he  ever  wrote.  If  one  wanted  to  give  an  intel- 
ligent foreign  critic  a  good  specimen  of  Macaulay — a 
specimen  in  which  most  of  his  merits  and  fewest  of  his 
faults  are  collected  in  a  small  compass — one  could  hardly 
do  better  than  give  him  the  article  on  Sir  William 


80  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

Temple.  The  extraordinary  variety  of  the  piece,  the  fine 
colouring  and  judicious  shading,  the  vivid  interest,  the 
weighty  topics  discussed  gravely,  the  lighter  accessories 
thrown  in  gracefully  over  and  around  the  main  theme, 
like  arabesque  work  on  a  Moorish  mosque,  or  flights  of 
octaves  and  arpeggios  in  a  sonata  of  Mozart,  justly  entitle 
it  to  a  high  place,  not  only  in  Macaulay's  writings,  but  in 
the  literature  of  the  age.  Strange  to  say,  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  a  favourite  with  the  public,  if  we 
may  infer  as  much  from  the  fact  that  it  has  not  been 
printed  separately ;  yet  no  article  deserves  it  better.  It 
is  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  The  article  on  Mackintosh 
calls  for  no  remark.  That  on  Walpole  is  interesting 
chiefly  for  the  amusing  animosity  which  Macaulay  nour- 
ished towards  him.  It  was  most  unjust.  He  had  far 
too  low  an  opinion  of  Walpole's  intellect,  which  was  in 
many  ways  more  penetrating  and  thoughtful  than  his 
own.  Walpole  did  not  call  Montesquieu  a  Parisian  cox- 
comb, but  the  very  moment  the  Esprit  des  Lois  appeared 
pronounced  it  the  best  book  that  ever  was  written. 
Walpole's  generous  sentiments  on  the  slave-trade,  half  a 
century  in  advance  of  public  opinion  on  the  subject, 
should  have  been  appreciated  by  a  son  of  Zachary  Ma- 
caulay. The  two  articles  on  the  first  WiHiam  Pitt,  writ- 
ten at  ten  years'  interval,  show  the  difference  between 
Macaulay's  earlier  and  later  manner  very  clearly.  The 
first  is  full  of  dash,  vigour,  and  interest,  but  in  a  some- 
what boisterous  tone  of  high  spirits,  which  at  times  runs 
dangerously  near  to  bad  taste.  As,  for  instance : 

"In  this  perplexity  Newcastle  sent  for  Pitt,  hugged 
him,  patted  him,  smirked  at  him,  wept  over  him,  and 
lisped  out  the  highest  compliments  and  the  most  splendid 
promises.  The  King,  who  had  hitherto  been  as  sulky  as 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  81 

possible,  would  be  civil  to  him  at  the  levee"  etc.,  etc. 
Nothing  of  this  kind  will  be  found  in  the  second  article 
(the  last  Macaulay  ever  wrote  for  the  Edinburgh  Review), 
but,  on  the  contrary,  great  dignity  and  gravity,  which  re- 
call the  best  pages  of  the  History.  He  was,  indeed,  writ- 
ing the  History  at  this  moment,  and  he  was  enjoying  a 
literary  leisure  such  as  he  had  never  enjoyed  before.  He 
also  was  losing  the  strongly  marked  characteristics  of  a 
party  man,  and  gravitating  to  that  central  and  neutral 
position  which  he  occupied  with  regard  to  politics  in  his 
later  years.  The  fact  is  worth  alluding  to,  as  there  seems 
still  to  survive  a  notion  that  Macaulay  from  first  to  last 
remained  a  narrow  and  bitter  Whig.  Those  who  hold 
this  view  may  consider  the  following  passage : 

"  The  Whig,  who  during  three  Parliaments  had  never  given  one  vote 
against  the  Court,  and  who  was  ready  to  sell  his  soul  for  the  Comp- 
troller's staff  or  for  the  Great  Wardrobe,  still  professed  to  draw  his 
political  doctrines  'from  Locke  and  Milton,  still  worshipped  the  mem- 
ory of  Pym  and  Hampden,  and  would  still,  on  the  30th  of  January, 
take  his  glass  to  the  man  in  the  mask  and  then  to  the  man  who 
would  do  it  without  a  mask.  The  Tory,  on  the  other  hand,  while  he 
reviled  the  mild  and  temperate  Walpole  as  a  deadly  enemy  of  liberty, 
could  see  nothing  to  reprobate  in  the  iron  tyranny  of  Strafford  and 
Laud.  But,  whatever  judgment  the  Whig  or  the  Tory  of  that  age 
might  pronounce  on  transactions  long  past,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  as  respected  practical  questions  then  pending,  the  Tory  was  a 
reformer — and  indeed  an  intemperate  and  indiscreet  reformer — while 
the  Whig  was  a  Conservative,  even  to  bigotry.  .  .  .  Thus,  the  succes- 
sors of  the  old  Cavaliers  had  turned  demagogues ;  the  successors  of 
the  old  Roundheads  had  turned  courtiers.  Yet  it  was  long  before 
their  mutual  animosity  began  to  abate ;  for  it  is  the  nature  of  par- 
ties to  retain  their  original  enmities  far  more  firmly  than  their  orig- 
inal principles.  During  many  years  a  generation  of  Whigs,  whom 
Sydney  would  have  spurned  as  slaves,  continued  to  wage  deadly  war 
with  a  generation  of  Tories  whom  Jeffreys  would  have  hanged  for 
republicans." 


82  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

i 

The  Pitts,  both  father  and  son,  seem  to  have  had  an 
unusual  attraction  for  Macaulay,  and  he  wrote  of  them 
with  more  sympathy  and  insight  than  of  any  other  states- 
man except  King  William  III.  His  biography  of  the 
younger  Pitt  is,  perhaps,  the  most  perfect  thing  that  he 
has  left.  It  is  not  an  historical  essay,  but  a  genuine 
"  Life,"  and  it  is  impossible  to  overpraise  either  the  plan 
or  the  execution.  Nearly  all  the  early  faults  of  his 
rhetorical  manner  have  disappeared;  there  is  no  elo- 
quence, no  declamation,  but  a  lofty  moral  impressiveness 
which  is  very  touching  and  noble.  It  was  written  when 
he  saw  his  own  death  to  be  near;  and  although  he  had 
none  of  Johnson's  "  horror  of  the  last,"  there  is  a  depth 
and  solemnity  of  tone  in  this  "  Life  "  to  which  he  never 
attained  before.  Pitt's  own  stately  and  majestic  charac- 
ter would  seem  to  have  chastened  and  elevated  his  style, 
which  recalls  the  masculine  dignity,  gravity,  and  calm 
peculiar  to  the  higher  strains  of  Roman  eloquence.  The 
little  work  deserves  printing  by  itself  on  "papier  de 
Chine,"  in  Elzevir  type,  by  Lemerre,  Quantin,  or  the 
Librairie  des  Bibliophiles. 

Very  different  are  the  two  famous  Indian  articles  on 
Clive  and  Warren  Hastings.  In  these  we  find  no  Attic 
severity  of  diction,  but  all  the  pomp  and  splendour  of 
Asiatic  eloquence.  It  is  not  unsuitable  to  the  occasion ; 
a  somewhat  gorgeous  magnificence  is  not  out  of  place  in 
the  East.  There  is  no  need  to  dwell  on  pieces  so  univer- 
sally and  justly  popular.1  They  belong,  it  need  not  be 

1  It  is  vexatious  to  be  forced  to  add  that  the  historical  fidelity  of 
the  fine  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings  is  in  many  places  open  to  more 
than  suspicion.  A  son  of  the  Chief-justice  of  Bengal  has  shown 
(Memoirs  of  Sir  Elijah  Impcyy  Simpkin,  Marshall  &  Co.,  1840)  that 
Macaulay  has  been  guilty  at  least  of  very  reckless  statements.  He 


m.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  83 

said,  to  his  second  and  better  manner ;  the  rhetoric,  though 
proud  and  high-stepping  enough,  is  visibly  under  restraint 
and  amenable  to  the  curb.  There  was  a  particular  reason 
why  Macaulay  was  so  successful  in  the  articles  on  the  two 
Pitts  and  the  two  Indian  Pro-consuls.  They  were  men 
whose  character  he  could  thoroughly  understand  and  large- 
ly admire.  Taken  all  round,  his  insight  into  men's  bosoms 
was  not  deep,  and  was  decidedly  limited.  Complex  and 
involved  characters,  in  which  the  good  and  evil  were  inter- 
woven in  odd  and  original  ways,  in  which  vulgar  and  ob- 
vious faults  or  vices  concealed  deeper  and  rarer  qualities 
underneath,  were  beyond  his  ken.  In  men  like  Rousseau, 
Byron,  Boswell,  even  Walpole,  he  saw  little  more  than  all 
the  world  could  see  —  those  patent  breaches  of  conven- 
tional decorum  and  morality  which  the  most  innocent 
young  person  could  join  him  in  condemning.  But  the 
great  civic  and  military  qualities — resolute  courage,  prompt- 
itude, self-command,  and  firmness  of  purpose — he  could 
thoroughly  understand  and  warmly  admire.  His  style  is 
always  animated  by  a  warmer  glow  and  a  deeper  note 
when  he  celebrates  high  deeds  of  valour  or  fortitude  ei- 
ther in  the  council  or  the  field.  There  was  an  heroic  fibre 
in  him,  which  the  peaceful  times  in  which  he  lived,  and 
the  peaceful  occupations  in  which  he  passed  his  days, 
never  adequately  revealed. 

Foreign  History  Group.1 — Of  these  five  articles  there  is 

was  not,  one  likes  to  think,  intentionally  and  wittingly  unfair;  but 
he  was  liable  to  become  inebriated  with  his  own  rhetoric  till  he  lost 
the  power  of  weighing  evidence.  The  old  superstitious  belief  in 
Macaulay' s  accuracy  is  a  creed  of  the  past ;  but  one  cannot  help  re- 
gretting that  he  never  saw  the  propriety  or  even  the  necessity  of 
either  answering  or  admitting  the  grave  reflections  on  his  truthful- 
ness made  in  Mr.  Barwell  Impey's  book. 

1  Machiavelli,  Mirabeau,  Von  Ranke,  Frederic,  Barere. 


84  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

only  one  over  which  we  can  linger.  The  Machiavelli  is 
ingenious  and  wide ;  but  its  main  thesis — that  the  Italians 
had  a  monopoly  of  perfidy  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries — is  untenable  and  almost  absurd.  The  Mirabeau 
is  sprightly,  but  it  contains  some  very  commonplace  errors 
— for  instance,  that  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy 
was  a  serious  loss  to  good  government  in  France.  As  to 
the  Frederic,  it  might  pass  muster  before  Carlyle  wrote  on 
the  subject :  it  has  little  interest  now.  The  article  on 
Barere  is  a  most  savage  philippic  against  one  of  the  most 
odious  characters  in  history.  Whether  he  deserved  so 
sumptuous  an  execution  may  be  doubted.  Alone  remains 
the  famous  article  on  the  History  of  the  Popes,  which  not 
only  bespeaks  attention  by  reason  of  its  subject  and  the 
point  of  view  from  which  that  subject  is  regarded,  but  be- 
cause it  is  apparently  considered  by  some  persons  as  valu- 
able and  important  in  itself.  It  is  very  far  indeed  from 
being  either.  If  the  articles  on  Temple  and  Pitt  show 
Macaulay's  good  side,  this  article  on  the  Popes  shows  his 
less  favourable  side  in  an  equal  degree.  It  was  not  a  sub- 
ject which  he  was  well  qualified  to  treat,  even  if  he  had 
done  his  best  and  given  himself  fair  play.  Circumstances 
and  his  own  temperament  combined  prevented  him  from 
doing  either  one  or  the  other. 

The  real  subject  of  the  article,  though  nominally  Ranke's 
book,  is  to  ask  the  question,  Why  did  Protestantism  cease 
to  spread  after  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  ?  and  why 
did  the  Church  of  Rome  recover  so  much  of  the  ground 
that  she  had  lost  in  the  early  years  of  the  Reformation  ? 
The  inquiry  was  an  interesting  one,  and  worthy  of  a  care- 
ful answer.  But  the  answer  could  only  be  found  or  given 
by  a  student  who  could  investigate  with  freedom,  and  who 
was  in  a  position  to  speak  his  mind.  To  write  with  one 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  85 

eye  on  the  paper  and  with  the  other  on  the  susceptibilities 
of  the  religious  world,  was  not  a  method  that  could  lead  to 
results  of  any  value.  And  Macaulay  comes  to  no  result. 
He  does  not  even  reach  a  conclusion.  The  question  with 
which  he  starts,  and  which  is  repeated  again  with  great 
solemnity  at  the  end  of  the  article,  is  not  answered,  nor  is 
an  answer  even  attempted.  He  displays  in  his  most  elab- 
orate manner  how  strange  and  surprising  it  is  that  the 
Roman  Church  should  survive  the  many  attacks  made 
upon  her ;  how  singular  it  is  that  when  Papists  now  for- 
sake their  religion  they  become  infidels,  and  not  Protes- 
tants ;  and  when  they  forsake  their  infidelity,  instead  of 
stopping  half  way  in  some  Protestant  faith,  they  go  back 
to  Romanism.  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  he  says, 
this  was  not  the  case.  "  Whole  nations  then  renounced 
Popery,  without  ceasing  to  believe  in  a  first  cause,  in  a 
future  life,  or  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus."  This  he  con- 
siders a  "most  remarkable  fact,"  and  worthy  of  "serious 
consideration."  But  he  does  not  give  a  hint  of  an  ex- 
planation of  the  fact — unless  the  singular  preface  to  the 
historical  portion  of  the  article  may  be  so  considered. 

The  purpose  of  this  introduction  is  to  discuss  whether 
the  growth  of  knowledge  and  science  has  any  influence  in 
the  way  of  promoting  the  rationality  of  men's  religious 
opinions ;  and  Macaulay  decides  that  it  has  not.  Science 
may  increase  to  any  amount,  but  that  will  never  have  the 
least  effect  on  either  natural  or  revealed  religion. 

"A  Christian  of  the  fifth  century  with  a  Bible  was  neither  better 
nor  worse  situated  than  a  Christian  of  the  nineteenth  century  with  a 
Bible  —  candour  and  natural  acuteness  being,  of  course,  supposed 
equal.  It  matters  not  at  all  that  the  compass,  printing,  gunpowder, 
steam,  gas,  vaccination,  and  a  thousand  other  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions, which  were  unknown  in  the  fifth  century,  are  familiar  to  the 


86  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

nineteenth.  None  of  these  discoveries  and  inventions  have  the 
smallest  bearing  on  the  question  whether  man  is  justified  by  faith 
alone,  or  whether  the  invocation  of  saints  is  an  orthodox  practice. 
It  seems  to  us,  therefore,  that  we  have  no  security  for  the  future 
against  the  prevalence  of  any  theological  error  that  has  prevailed  in 
time  past  among  Christian  men." 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  when  he  reflects  that  a  man  of 
such  wisdom  and  virtue  as  Sir  Thomas  More  believed  in 
Transubstantiation,  he  is  unable  to  see  why  that  doctrine 
should  not  be  believed  by  able  and  honest  men  till  the 
end  of  time.  No  progress  of  science  can  make  that  doc- 
trine more  absurd  than  it  is  already,  or  than  it  ever  has 
been.  "  The  absurdity  of  the  literal  interpretation  was  as 
great  and  as  obvious  in  the  sixteenth  century  as  it  is  now.11 
In  fact,  the  human  mind  is  given  up  to  caprice  on  these 
matters,  and  obeys  no  ascertainable  law.  "  No  learning, 
no  sagacity,  affords  a  security  against  the  greatest  errors 
on  subjects  relating  to  the  invisible  world."  Whether  a 
man  believes  in  sense  or  nonsense  with  regard  to  religion 
is  merely  a  matter  of  accident.  But  if  that  is  so,  what  is 
there  in  the  least  surprising  that  the  Church  of  Rome  has 
survived  so  many  attacks  and  perils?  why  is  that  fact 
"  most  remarkable "  and  "  worthy  of  serious  considera- 
tion ?"  It  is  expressly  stated  that  reason  has  nothing  to 
do  with  these  matters.  Any  old  heresy  may  come  to  life 
again  at  any  moment.  Any  nonsense  may  be  believed  by 
men  of  learning  and  sagacity.  Then  why  wonder  that 
one  particular  form  of  nonsense  is  believed  ?  It  is  a  waste 
of  time  to  marvel  at  the  effects  of  acknowledged  chance. 
If,  indeed,  the  phenomena  recur  with  considerable  regu- 
larity and  persistence,  we  may  have  good  reason  to  suspect 
a  law.  In  either  case  Macaulay's  procedure  was  illegiti- 
mate. Roman  Catholicism  is  capable  of  rational  explana- 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  87 

tion,  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is,  let  the  inquiry  into  the  moral, 
social,  and  intellectual  causes  of  its  origin  be  soberly  con- 
ducted. If  it  is  not  capable  of  rational  explanation,  why 
pronounce  its  prevalence  worthy  of  consideration  and  most 
remarkable  ? 

But  what  can  be  said  of  the  passage  in  which  a  Christian 
of  the  fifth  century  with  a  Bible  is  declared  to  be  neither 
better  nor  worse  situated  than  a  Christian  of  the  nineteenth 
century  with  a  Bible  ?  This  is  to  assert  that  the  lapse  of 
time  has  no  effect  on  the  way  in  which  men  read,  under- 
stand, and  interpret  ancient  writings.  With  regard  to 
any  literature  such  a  remark  would  be  most  erroneous; 
but  with  regard  to  the  Scriptural  literature — the  Bible — 
it  is  erroneous  to  absurdity.  If  there  is  any  one  thing 
which  varies  from  age  to  age  more  than  another,  it  is  the 
way  in  which  men  regard  the  writings  of  past  generations, 
whether  these  be  poetry,  philosophy,  history,  or  law.  But 
the  point  of  view  from  which  religious  writings  are  re- 
garded is  exposed  to  perturbations  of  exceptional  violence. 
And  yet  Macaulay  deliberately  wrote  that  the  lapse  of 
fourteen  hundred  years  had,  and  could  have,  no  effect  on 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures — that  a  Christian  reading  the 
Bible  amid  the  falling  ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  in 
the  same  position  as  a  Christian  reading  the  Bible  in  pros- 
perous England  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  A  more 
inept  remark  was  hardly  ever  made  by  a  man  of  educa- 
tion. With  regard  to  what  ancient  writings  did  Macaulay 
find  himself  neither  better  nor  worse  situated  than  a  man 
of  the  fifth  century  ?  Did  he  read  Plato,  as  Plotinus  or 
Proclus  did  ?  Did  he  read  Cicero,  as  Macrobius  did  ?  or 
Virgil,  as  Servius  did  ?  or  Homer,  as  Eustathius  did  (a  cen- 
tury or  two  makes  no  difference)  ?  Did  he  even  read  Pope, 
as  Johnson  did,  or  Congreve,  or  Cowley,  or  any  writer  that 


88  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

ever  lived  in  an  age  removed  from  bis  own?  But  the 
changes  of  mental  attitude  with  regard  to  secular  writers 
are  trivial  as  compared  to  the  changes  which  take  place 
with  regard  to  religious  writers.  In  a  similar  spirit,  he 
says  that  the  absurdity  of  the  literal  interpretation  was  as 
great  and  as  obvious  in  the  sixteenth  century  as  it  is  now. 
This  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  what  appeared  obviously 
absurd  to  him  was  always  obviously  absurd  to  everybody. 
That  the  human  mind  in  the  course  of  its  development 
has  gone  through  great  changes  in  its  conceptions  of  the 
universe — of  man's  position  in  it — of  the  order  of  nature 
— seems  to  have  been  a  notion  which  he  never  even  re- 
motely suspected.  Did  he  think  that  the  Pagan  Mythol- 
ogy was  as  obviously  absurd  in  the  time  of  Homer  as  it  is 
now  ?  Did  he  find  the  Hindoo  Mythology  obviously  ab- 
surd to  religious  Brahmins?  This  is  the  writing  of  a  man 
who  cannot  by  possibility  conceive  any  point  of  view  but 
his  own. 

The  remainder  of  the  article  is  devoted  to  a  description 
of  what  he  names  the  four  uprisings  of  the  human  intel- 
lect against  the  Church  of  Rome.  Macaulay  painting  a 
picture,  and  Macaulay  discussing  a  religious  or  philosoph- 
ical question,  are  two  different  persons.  There  is  some 
very  attractive  and  graceful  scene-painting  in  this  part  of 
the  article.  The  Albigensian  Crusade  is  narrated  with 
great  spirit,  brevity,  and  accuracy.  What  he  calls  the 
second  rising  up,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  was  not  one 
at  all.  It  was  a  quarrel  between  an  ambitious  king  and 
an  ambitious  pope,  in  which  the  latter  got  the  worst  of  it. 
His  knowledge  here  is  very  thin :  as  when  he  says  that 
"the  secular  authority,  long  unduly  depressed,  regained 
the  ascendant  with  startling  rapidity."  What  secular  au- 
thority had.  been  depressed  ?  There  had  not  been  any 


m.l  THE  "ESSAYS."  89 

secular  authority  in  France  from  the  fall  of  the  Carling 
Empire  till  the  gradual  establishment  of  the  Capetian 
Monarchy  under  Philip  Augustus  and  his  successors.  Feu- 
dalism had  reigned  supreme  for  three  hundred  years ;  and 
feudalism  in  France  was  the  negation  of  secular  authority, 
because  it  was  incompatible  with  any  general  government. 
But  we  cannot  dwell  on  this  point,  any  more  than  we  can 
on  his  treatment  of  the  Reformation,  which  is  full  of  small 
slips ;  as,  for  instance,  that  "  the  spirit  of  Savonarola  had 
nothing  in  common  with  the  spirit  of  religious  Protes- 
tantism." Luther,  at  any  rate,  did  not  hold  that  view,  as 
he  republished  in  1523  Savonarola's  Commentary  on  the 
Psalms.  Again,  he  says  that  Catholicism  was  associated 
in  the  public  mind  of  Spain  with  liberty  as  well  as  victory 
and  dominion.  As  regards  victory  and  dominion  the  re- 
mark is  true ;  but  liberty  !  The  reference  is  to  the  period 
of  the  Spanish  conquest  of  Mexico  by  Cortez ;  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  despotic  reign  of  Charles  V.  We  have  only 
space  to  refer  to  the  odd  comparison,  or  rather  contrast, 
which  he  draws  between  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
Church  of  Rome,  the  object  of  which  is  to  show  that  the 
policy  of  the  latter  "  is  the  very  masterpiece  of  human 
wisdom,"  whereas  the  policy  of  the  Church  of  England 
has  been  very  much  the  reverse.  It  takes  him  three  pages 
to  develop  his  idea,  but  it  all  comes  to  this,  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  knows  how  to  utilize  enthusiasm,  and 
the  Church  of  England  does  not.  "  Place  Ignatius  at  Ox- 
ford :  he  is  certain  to  become  the  head  of  a  formidable 
secession.  Place  John  Wesley  at  Rome :  he  is  certain  to 
be  the  first  general  of  a  new  society  devoted  to  the  inter- 
ests and  honour  of  the  Church."  Now,  this  sentence,  and 
the  whole  argument  of  which  it  is  a  part,  is  very  singular, 
as  showing  that  Macaulay  was  often  not  fully  master  of 


90  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

the  knowledge  which  we  know  that  he  possessed.  When 
he  paints  a  picture  his  hand  never  shakes ;  his  imagina- 
tion for  that  purpose  holds  all  the  facts  he  requires  in 
vivid  reality  before  him.  But  when  he  attempts  to  gen- 
eralize, to  co-ordinate  facts  in  a  general  expression,  he 
breaks  down.  As  in  the  present  instance :  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  Reformation,  both  in  England  and  on  the  Con- 
tinent, was  there  to  show  him  that  the  profound  wisdom 
he  ascribed  to  the  Church  of  Rome  existed  only  in  his 
own  fancy.  Greater  caution  in  handling  Luther,  greater 
prudence  with  regard  to  Henry  VIII.,  might,  it  is  well 
known,  have  prevented  a  schism.  But  the  case  of  the  Jan- 
senists  was  enough  to  show  him  how  hasty  his  view  was, 
if  he  had  given  himself  time  to  reflect.  He  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  facts.  In  this  very  article  he  refers  to 
the  destruction  of  Port  Royal.  But  what  were  the  Jan- 
senists  but  the  Wesley  an  s  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  a 
singular  closeness  of  analogy  ?  He  reproaches  the  English 
Church  with  the  defection  of  Wesley,  and  no  doubt  a  great 
deal  may  be  said  as  regards  the  unwisdom  which  allowed 
or  caused  it.  But  what  was  that  compared  to  the  treat- 
ment of  the  Jansenists  by  the  Church  of  Rome?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  from  the  time  of  St.  Cyran  and  Antony 
Arnauld  to  the  time  of  Lammenais  and  Dollinger,  the 
Church  of  Rome  has  never  hesitated  to  take  the  shortest 
way  with  dissentients  in  her  own  communion,  "  to  spue 
them  out  of  her  mouth,"  with  every  mark  of  detestation 
and  abhorrence.  On  the  other  hand,  of  all  long-suffering 
Churches,  tolerant  and  docile  of  contradiction  to  the  verge 
of  feebleness,  the  Church  of  England  is  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable.  And  Macaulay  knew  this  quite  well. 

Controversial  Group.1 — Controversy  is  at  once  the  most 
1  Mill,  Saddler,  Southey,  Gladstone. 


raj  THE  "ESSAYS."  91 

popular  and  the  most  ephemeral  form  of  composition. 
Nothing  seems  more  important  at  the  moment:  nothing 
less  so  when  the  moment  has  passed.  Of  all  the  endless 
controversies  of  which  the  world  has  ever  been  full,  only 
the  fewest  survive  in  human  memory ;  and  they  do  so 
either  because  they  have  been  real  turning-points  in  the 
history  of  thought,  or  because  something  of  permanent 
value  outside  the  immediate  subject  of  contention  was 
struck  out  in  the  conflict.  Pascal's  Provincial  Letters  are 
the  supreme  example  of  a  controversial  piece  on  which 
time  seems  to  have  no  effect.  But  Pascal  had  advantages 
such  as  no  other  controversialist  has  ever  united.  First 
of  all,  he  did  not  kill  his  adversaries,  generally  the  most 
fatal  thing  for  his  own  permanent  fame  that  a  contro- 
versialist can  do.  The  Jesuits  still  exist,  and  are  still 
hated  by  many.  Those  who  bear  ill-will  to  the  Society 
find  in  the  Provincial  Letters  the  most  exquisite  expres- 
sion of  their  dislike.  Secondly,  Pascal  was  the  first  clas- 
sic prose  writer  of  his  country.  On  a  lower,  but  still  a 
very  high,  level  stands  Bentley's  dissertation  on  Phalaris. 
Bentley  did  kill  his  adversary  dead,  but  it  was  with  mis- 
siles of  pure  gold,  which  the  world  carefully  preserves. 
Macaulay,  it  need  hardly  be  remarked,  did  nothing  of 
this  kind.  He  took  his  share  with  courage  and  ability 
in  the  battle  for  Liberal  views  forty  and  fifty  years  ago, 
and  that  is  nearly  all  that  can  be  said.  He  kept  the  posi- 
tion— he  repelled  the  enemy ;  he  did  not  advance  and 
occupy  new  ground,  and  give  a  new  aspect  to  the  whole 
campaign.  As  he  suppressed  the  articles  on  Mill,  with  a 
delicacy  which  did  him  honour,  they  need  hardly  be  re- 
ferred to.  It  has  been  well  pointed  out  that  there  is  a 
contradiction  between  his  principles  and  his  conduct  on 
this  occasion.  "  He  ought  by  all  his  intellectual  sympa- 
G  5 


92  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

thies  to  be  a  Utilitarian.  Yet  Jhe  abuses  Utilitarianism 
with  the  utmost  contempt,  and  has  no  alternative  theory 
to  suggest."1  But  coherence  of  thought,  we  have  seen, 
was  not  his  characteristic.  The  article  on  Southey  is 
much  more  pleasant  reading.  If  while  admiring  its  vig- 
our we  miss  a  lightness  of  touch,  we  should  remember 
that  it  was  written  two  years  before  the  passing  of  the 
Reform  Bill,  when  the  minds  of  men  had  become  heated 
to  a  degree  of  fierceness.  The  admiration  expressed  for 
the  industrial  regime  strikes  a  reader  of  the  present  day 
as  oddly  sentimental  and  impassioned.  But  the  indus- 
trial regime  was  a  very  different  thing  in  1830  from  what 
it  is  in  1882,  and  Macaulay  was  the  last  man  to  forecast 
the  future  evils  of  the  manufacturing  system.  As  usual, 
he  shows  his  strength,  not  in  thinking,  but  in  drawing. 
The  following  passage  has  always  appeared  to  us  as  one 
of  the  best  in  his  earlier  and  less  chastened  manner : 

"  Part  of  this  description  might,  perhaps,  apply  to  a  much  greater 
man,  Mr.  Burke.  But  Mr.  Burke  assuredly  possessed  an  understand- 
ing admirably  fitted  for  the  investigation  of  truth — an  understanding 
stronger  than  that  of  any  statesman,  active  or  speculative,  of  the 
eighteenth  century — stronger  than  everything,  except  his  own  fierce 
and  ungovernable  sensibility.  Hence  he  generally  chose  his  side  like 
a  fanatic,  and  defended  it  like  a  philosopher.  His  conduct,  in  the 
most  important  events  of  his  life — at  the  time  of  the  impeachment 
of  Hastings,  for  example,  and  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution — 
seems  to  have  been  prompted  by  those  feelings  and  motives  which 
Mr.  Coleridge  has  so  happily  described : 

'  Stormy  pity,  and  cherish'd  lure 
Of  pomp,  and  proud  precipitance  of  soul.' 

Hindostan,  with  its  vast  cities,  its  gorgeous  pagodas,  its  long-de- 
scended dynasties,  its  stately  etiquette,  excited  in  a  mind  so  capa- 

1  Hours  in  a  Library,  by  Leslie  Stephen,  3rd  series. 


ra.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  93 

cious,  so  imaginative,  and  so  susceptible,  the  most  intense  interest. 
The  peculiarities  of  the  costume,  of  the  manners,  and  of  the  laws, 
the  very  mystery  which  hung  over  the  language  and  origin  of  the 
people,  seized  his  imagination.  To  plead  in  Westminster  Hall,  in  the 
name  of  the  English  people,  at  the  bar  of  the  English  nobles,  for 
great  nations  and  kings  separated  from  him  by  half  the  world,  seem- 
ed to  him  the  height  of  human  glory.  Again,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
perceive  that  his  hostility  to  the  French  Revolution  principally  arose 
from  the  vexation  which  he  felt  at  having  all  his  old  political  associa- 
tions disturbed,  at  seeing  the  well-known  boundary-marks  of  states 
obliterated,  and  the  names  and  distinctions  with  which  the  history 
of  Europe  had  been  filled  for  ages,  swept  away.  He  felt  like  an 
antiquary  whose  shield  had  been  scoured,  or  a  connoisseur  who  found 
his  Titian  retouched.  But  however  he  came  by  an  opinion,  he  had 
no  sooner  got  it  than  he  did  his  best  to  make  out  a  legitimate  title 
to  it.  His  reason,  like  a  spirit  in  the  service  of  an  enchanter,  though 
spellbound,  was  still  mighty.  It  did  whatever  work  his  passions 
and  his  imagination  might  impose.  But  it  did  that  work,  however 
arduous,  with  marvellous  dexterity  and  vigour.  His  course  was  not 
determined  by  argument ;  but  he  could  defend  the  wildest  course  by 
arguments  more  plausible  than  those  by  which  common  men  support 
opinions  which  they  have  adopted  after  the  fullest  deliberation. 
Reason  has  scarcely  ever  displayed,  even  in  those  well-constituted 
minds  of  which  she  occupies  the  throne,  so  much  power  and  energy 
as  in  the  lowest  offices  of  that  imperial  servitude." 

The  article  on  Mr.  Gladstone's  book,  The  State  in  its 
delations  with  the  Church,  perhaps  interests  us  more  than 
it  should,  by  reason  of  the  courteous  but  severe  handling 
given  to  "the  young  man  of  unblemished  character  and 
distinguished  parliamentary  talents — the  rising  hope  of 
those  stern  and  unbending  Tories,"  who  have  long  since 
looked  in  another  direction  for  hope  and  leadership.  As 
regards  Macaulay's  main  contention,  that  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  powers  should  be  kept  apart  as  much  as 
possible,  few  nowadays  would  dispute  it.  Mr.  Stephen 
doubts  whether  we  can  draw  the  line  between  the  spir* 


94  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

itual  and  the  secular.1  And  in  our  age  of  mixed  and 
motley  creeds,  representing  every  degree  of  belief  and 
unbelief,  tlie  task  may  be  arduous.  The  real  difficulty  is 
this,  that  the  State  always  asserts  implicitly  a  creed  or 
doctrine,  by  its  legislation,  even  when  most  careful  to 
avoid  doing  so  in  an  explicit  manner.  Not  to  be  with  a 
religious  doctrine,  is  to  be  against  it.  Even  to  ignore  its 
claims  or  existence,  is  quoad  hoc  to  be  hostile  to  them. 
When  the  State  establishes  civil  marriage,  it  puts  an 
affront  on  the  sacrament  of  marriage  ;  when  it  undertakes 
to  teach  the  commoner  elements  of  morality  in  its 
schools,  but  refuses  to  further  the  inculcation  of  the 
Christian  version  of  those  elements,  it  is  so  far  slighting 
Christianity.  The  result  is  ceaseless  and  illogical  com- 
promise, extending  over  the  whole  field  of  politics.  And 
this  condition  of  things  can  only  be  terminated  either  by 
the  whole  population  becoming  Christian,  and  identical 
in  creed,  or  wholly  agnostic.  It  by  no  means  suited  Ma- 
caulay's  purpose  to  say  this  in  the  pages  of  the  Edin- 
burgh Review.  Perhaps  he  did  not  see  his  way  so  far. 
His  maxim  was — "Remove  always  practical  grievances. 
Do  not  give  a  thought  to  anomalies  which  are  not  griev- 
ances." Thus,  he  was  for  maintaining  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  England,  and  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Scot- 
land ;  and  for  paying  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  in  Ire- 
land. Against  these  practical  makeshifts  there  is  nothing 
to  be  said,  if  they  produce  peace.  But  in  the  domain  of 
speculation  they  have  no  place.  Mr.  Gladstone's  position 
— perhaps  not  very  logically  maintained — was,  that  the 
State  was  bound  to  be  Christian,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Church  of  England.  The  counter  position  is,  that  the 
State  is  bound  to  be  agnostic,  after  a  fashion  which  no- 

1  Hourt  in  a  Library,  3rd  series. 


in.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  95 

where  completely  exists.  To  say  this  in  1839  would 
have  given  rise  to  unbounded  scandal.  Macaulay  was  so 
hampered  in  his  argument  that  he  has  heen  accused  "  of 
begging  the  question  by  evading  the  real  difficulty." 
That  may  be  true  enough  from  one  point  of  view ;  but  he 
could  hardly  have  been  expected  to  write,  in  that  day, 
very  differently  from  what  he  did. 

Critical  Group.1 — When  Macvey  Napier  requested  Ma- 
caulay to  write  for  him  an  article  on  Scott  he  made  answer, 
"  I  assure  you  that  I  would  willingly,  and  even  eagerly,  un- 
dertake the  subject  which  you  propose,  if  I  thought  that  I 
should  serve  you  by  doing  so.  But  depend  upon  it,  you 
do  not  know  what  you  are  asking  for.  ...  I  am  not  suc- 
cessful in  analyzing  the  works  of  genius.  I  have  written 
several  things  on  historical,  political,  and  moral  questions, 
of  which,  on  the  fullest  reconsideration,  I  am  not  ashamed, 
and  by  which  I  am  willing  to  be  estimated ;  but  I  never 
have  written  a  page  of  criticism  on  poetry  or  the  fine  arts 
which  I  would  not  burn  if  I  had  the  power."  Nothing 
could  be  more  frank,  modest,  and  true.  After  such  a  can- 
did avowal  it  would  be  ungracious  to  find  fault  with  pieces 
which  their  author  wished  to  destroy.  But  it  is  not  clear 
that  he  meant  to  include  in  this  condemnation  all  the  arti- 
cles in  this  group :  especially  those  on  Johnson  and  Bacon 
might  be  supposed  excepted,  and  to  come  under  the  head 
of  those  "  moral  questions  "  in  his  treatment  of  which  he 
did  not  consider  himself  to  have  failed.  They  are  much 
more  moral  studies  than  literary  criticisms.  Now,  we  have 
had  occasion  to  notice  that  Macaulay's  insight  into  charac- 
ter, unless  it  was  exceptionally  free  from  knots  and  straight 
in  the  grain,  was  fitful  and  uncertain.  Neither  Johnson 

1  Dryden,  R.  Montgomery,  Byron,  Bunyan,  Johnson,  Bacon,  Hunt, 
Addison. 


96  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

nor  Bacon  were  men  whom  he  could  have  been  expected 
to  see  through  with  a  wide  and  tolerant  eye.  With  John- 
son Boswell  is  inseparably  associated;  and  Macaulay  has 
spoken  of  him  also  with  abundant  emphasis.  To  these 
three,  therefore,  our  remarks  will  be  confined. 

His  paradox  about  Boswell  is  well  known,  and  consists 
in  tracing  the  excellence  of  his  book  to  the  badness  of  the 
author.  Other  men,  we  are  told,  have  attained  to  literary 
eminence  in  spite  of  their  weaknesses.  Boswell  attained  it 
by  reason  of  his  weaknesses.  "  If  he  had  not  been  a  great 
fool,  he  would  not  have  been  a  great  writer."  "  He  had 
quick  observation  and  a  retentive  memory.  These  quali- 
ties, if  he  had  been  a  man  of  sense  and  virtue,  would  scarce- 
ly have  sufficed  to  make  him  conspicuous.  But  as  he  was 
a  dunce,  a  parasite,  and  a  coxcomb,  they  have  made  him 
immortal."  Sense  and  virtue  have  in  that  case  a  great 
deal  to  answer  for,  in  depriving  the  world  of  masterly 
biographies.  How  it  happened  that  the  best  of  books  was 
written  by  the  most  arrant  of  fools  Macaulay  neglects  to 
explain.  Blind  chance,  or  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms, 
have  been  supposed  to  offer  a  sufficient  account  of  the  ori- 
gin of  the  world;  and  apparently  something  similar  was 
imagined  here.  Critical  helplessness  could  hardly  go  fur- 
ther. Still,  although  Macaulay  habitually  fails  to  analyze 
and  exhibit  the  merits  of  literary  work,  he  rarely  overlooks 
them.  Boswell,  he  says,  had  neither  logic,  eloquence,  wit, 
learning,  taste,  nor  so  much  of  the  reasoning  faculty  as  to 
be  capable  even  of  sophistry.  "  He  is  always  ranting  or 
twaddling  ?"  What,  then,  is  there  to  praise  in  his  book  ? 
The  reports  of  Johnson's  conversations,  and  those  of  tho 
Club,  might  be  the  supposed  answer.  But  did  Macaulay, 
so  able  an  artist  himself,  think  nothing  of  the  great  and 
rare  art  of  mise  en  scene  ?  Did  he  suppose  that  a  short- 


m.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  97 

hand  writer's  report  of  those  famous  wit-combats  would 
have  done  as  well,  or  better?  The  fact  is,  that  no  dram- 
atist or  novelist  of  the  whole  century  surpassed,  of  even 
equalled,  Bos  well  in  rounded,  clear,  and  picturesque  pre- 
sentation— in  real  dramatic  faculty.  Macaulay's  attack  on 
his  moral  character  is  even  more  offensive.  He  calls  him 
an  idolater  and  a  slave ;  says  he  was  like  a  creeper,  which 
must  cling  to  some  stronger  plant ;  and  that  it  was  only 
by  accident  that  he  did  not  fasten  himself  on  Wilkes  or 
Whitfield.  Nothing  could  be  more  unjust,  more  unintelli- 
gent. Boswell's  attitude  to  Johnson,  as  was  so  well  point- 
ed out  by  Carlyle,  in  an  article  which  it  is  difficult  not  to 
regard  in  some  respects  as  a  covert  answer  to  this  of  Ma- 
caulay's, was  one  of  boundless  reverence  and  love  to  a  su- 
perior in  intellect  and  moral  worth.  His  feeling  towards 
Paoli  was  of  a  similar  kind.  This  fervent  hero-worship 
Macaulay  cannot  in  the  least  understand.  In  his  view  it 
was  mere  base  sycophancy  and  toad-eating.  Boswell,  he 
says,  "  was  always  laying  himself  at  the  feet  of  some  emi- 
nent man,  and  begging  to  be  spit  upon  and  trampled  on." 
Well  might  Carlyle  say  that  the  last  thing  that  Boswell 
would  have  done,  if  he  had  been  a  mere  flunkey,  would 
have  been  to  act  as  he  did.  Johnson  was  never  of  much 
importance  in  the  great  world  of  fashion,  into  which  he 
penetrated  very  nearly  as  little  at  the  end  as  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career.  Boswell  could,  as  a  Scotch  Tory  of 
good  birth  and  an  eldest  son,  easily  have  found  much  more 
serviceable  patrons  to  whom  to  pay  his  court  than  the  rag- 
ged, ill-tempered  old  scholar,  who  gave  him  many  more 
kicks  than  halfpence.  Macaulay  might  have  recollected 
that  he  himself  once  paid  his  court  to  an  insolent  aristo- 
crat, Lady  Holland,  who  ordered  her  guests  about  as  if 
they  were  footmen;  that,  though  he  certainly  did  not 


98  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

waste  his  time  in  running  after  obscure  sages,  he  knew 
quite  well  how,  by  a  judicious  mixture  of  independence 
and  usefulness,  to  attract  the  notice  of  a  powerful  Minister. 
Boswell's  faults  and  vices  are  obvious  enough ;  but  if  he 
was  the  insufferable  bore  and  noodle  that  Macaulay  de- 
scribes, how  came  Johnson — a  man  of  masculine  sense — 
to  make  him  his  intimate,  to  spend  months  with  him  in 
the  daily  contact  of  a  long  journey,  and  then  pronounce 
him  "  the  best  travelling  companion  in  the  world  ?" 

We  now  come  to  Johnson.  Besides  the  article  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  we  have  the  biography  published  in 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  written  twenty -five  years 
afterwards.  The  latter,  as  belonging  to  his  last  and  best 
manner,  is  more  chaste  in  language,  and  more  kindly  and 
tolerant  in  tone,  than  the  essay ;  still,  it  is  essentially  on 
the  same  lines  of  thought  and  sentiment.  We  have  the 
same  clear  perception  of  the  external  husk  of  Johnson ; 
but  there  is  as  little  penetration  into  his  deeper  character 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  There  is  nothing  unfair 
or  ungenerous ;  especially  in  the  biography  there  seems  a 
fixed  resolve  to  be  as  generous  as  possible ;  but  the  appre- 
ciation is  inadequate,  and  chiefly  confined  to  the  surface. 
The  following  is  nearly  Macaulay's  masterpiece  in  super- 
ficial portraiture,  as  showing  his  tendency  to  dwell  on  the 
outside  appearance  of  character  and  little  besides : 

"  Johnson  grown  old — Johnson  in  the  fulness  of  his  fame,  and  in 
the  enjoyment  of  a  competent  fortune,  is  better  known  to  us  than 
any  other  man  in  history.  Everything  about  him — his  coat,  his  wig, 
his  figure,  his  face,  his  scrofula,  his  St. Vitus's  dance,  his  rolling  walk, 
his  blinking  eye,  the  outward  signs  which  too  clearly  marked  his  ap- 
probation of  his  dinner,  his  insatiable  appetite  for  fish-sauce  and  veal 
pie  with  plums,  his  inextinguishable  thirst  for  tea,  his  trick  of  touch- 
ing th«  posts  as  he  walked,  his  mysterious  practice  of  treasuring  up 


m.]-  THE  "ESSAYS."  99 

scraps  of  orange  peel,  his  morning  slumbers,  his  midnight  disputa- 
tions, his  contortions,  his  mutterings,  his  gruntings,  his  puffings,  his 
vigorous,  acute,  and  ready  eloquence,  his  sarcastic  wit,  his  vehement 
insolence,  his  fits  of  tempestuous  rage,  his  queer  inmates — old  Mr. 
Levett  and  blind  Mrs.  Williams,  the  cat  Hodge,  and  negro  Frank — all 
are  as  familiar  to  us  as  objects  by  which  we  have  been  surrounded 
from  our  childhood." 


There  is  all  through  both  pieces  too  much  dwelling  on 
Johnson's  coarse  manners,  fits  of  ill-temper,  and  tendency 
to  over-eat  himself.  These  details  are  welcome  in  a  bi- 
ography, but  out  of  place  in  a  critical  estimate.  The  only 
point  of  view  from  which  Johnson  can  be  properly  judged 
is  that  which  Macaulay  never  took  up — the  religious  point 
of  view.  Johnson  was  an  ardent  believer,  ever  fighting 
with  doubt.  His  heart  was  full  of  faith,  while  his  intel- 
lect was  inclined  to  scepticism.  A  great  deal  of  his  impa- 
tience and  irritability  arose  from  this  dual  condition  of  his 
mind  and  sentiments.  He  felt  that  if  he  listened  to  unbe- 
lief he  would  be  lost.  He  was  always  wanting  more  evi- 
dence than  lie  could  get  for  supernatural  things.  That 
was  why  he  hunted  after  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost,  and  was 
always  fond  of  stories  that  seemed  to  confirm  the  belief  in 
a  life  beyond  the  grave.  He  disbelieved  the  earthquake 
of  Lisbon,  because  it  seemed  to  reflect  on  the  benevolence 
of  God.  It  is  this  insecure  but  ardent  piety  which  gives 
him  an  interest  and  a  pathos  from  which  the  common 
run  of  contented  believers  are  generally  free.  Next  to  his 
piety,  the  profound  tenderness  of  Johnson's  nature  is  his 
most  marked  trait.  When  they  are  fused  together,  as 
they  sometimes  were,  the  result  is  inexpressibly  touching, 
as  in  that  notice  in  his  diary  of  the  death  of  his  "  dear  old 
friend,"  Catherine  Chambers.  When  we  read  of  his  in- 
cessant benevolence  we  can  understand  the  love  he  inspired 
5* 


100  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

in  all  who  really  knew  him,  which  made  Goldsmith  say, 
"  He  has  nothing  of  the  bear  but  the  skin ;"  and  Burke 
say,  when  he  was  out-talked  by  Johnson,  to  some  one's  re- 
gret, "  It  is  enough  for  me  to  have  rung  the  bell  for  him." 
These  things  are  not  exactly  overlooked  by  Macaulay,  but 
they  are  not  brought  out ;  whereas  Johnson's  puffings,  and 
gruntings,  and  perspiration  when  at  his  dinner,  are  made 
very  prominent. 

We  now  come,  not  without  reluctance,  to  look  at  the 
deplorable  article  on  Bacon. 

The  historical  portion  has  only  just  lately  received  such 
an  exposure  at  the  hands  of  the  late  Mr.  Spedding,  that 
to  dwell  upon  it  here  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  would  be 
impertinent.  Two  octavo  volumes  were  not  found  more 
than  sufficient  to  set  forth  the  full  proofs  of  Macaulay's 
quite  astounding  inaccuracies,  misrepresentations,  and  even 
falsifications  of  truth.  The  only  question  that  we  can  dis- 
cuss even  for  a  moment  in  this  place  is,  what  could  have 
been  Macaulay's  motive  for  writing  with  such  passion  and 
want  of  good  faith  against  a  man  whom  in  the  same  breath 
he  extolled  even  to  excess  ?  We  cannot  suspect  him — "  a 
lump  of  good-nature  " — of  malignity.  The  probability  is 
that  his  usual  incapacity  to  see  through  an  intricate  char* 
acter  led  him  into  airing  one  of  those  moral  paradoxes  of 
which  he  was  fond.  A  jarring  contrast  of  incompatible 
qualities,  so  far  from  repelling  very  much  attracted  him  in 
a  character.  He  seems  to  have  thought  it  good  fun  to 
expand  Pope's  line  into  an  article  of  a  hundred  pages. 
One  can  imagine  him  thinking  as  he  wrote,  "  What  will 
they  say  to  this  ?"  for  the  rest  meaning  no  particular  harm 
either  to  Bacon  or  any  one.  The  piece  has  no  moral 
earnestness  about  it,  and  is  flippant  in  thought  even  when 
decorous  in  language. 


HI.]  THE  "ESSAYS.'1,' ,    ;\\  ^  J  > '  \    '     uu' 

The  object  is  a  deliberate  attack  and  invective  against 
all  higher  speculation,  which  is  branded  as  mere  cant  and 
hypocrisy.  The  philosophy  of  both  Zeno  and  Epicurus, 
we  are  told,  was  a  "  garrulous,  declaiming,  canting,  wran- 
gling philosophy."  The  philosophy  of  the  ancients  is 
pronounced  "  barren."  The  ancient  philosophers,  in  those 
very  matters  "for  the  sake  of  which  they  neglected  all 
the  vulgar  interests  of  mankind,  did  nothing,  and  worse 
than  nothing."  "  We  know  that  the  philosophers  were 
no  better  than  other  men.  From  the  testimony  of  friends 
as  well  as  foes,  ...  it  is  plain  that  these  teachers  of  virtue 
had  all  the  vices  of  their  neighbours  with  the  additional 
vice  of  hypocrisy."  Religion  itself  when  allied  with  phi- 
losophy became  equally  pernicious.  The  great  merit  of 
Bacon  was  that  he  cleared  his  mind  of  all  this  rubbish. 
"  He  had  no  anointing  for  broken  bones,  no  fine  theories 
de  finibus,  no  arguments  to  persuade  men  out  of  their 
senses.  He  knew  that  men  and  philosophers,  as  well  as 
other  men,  do  actually  love  life,  health,  comfort,  honour,  se- 
curity, the  society  of  friends ;  and  do  actually  dislike  death, 
sickness,  pain,  poverty,  disgrace,  danger,  separation  from 
those  to  whom  they  are  attached.  He  knew  that  religion, 
though  it  often  regulates  and  modifies  these  feelings,  sel- 
dom eradicates  them;  nor  did  he  think  it  desirable  for 
mankind  that  they  should  be  eradicated."  Much  more  is 
said  against  the  ancient  philosophers,  and  in  favour  of 
Bacon,  who  appears  moreover  to  have  had  two  peculiar 
merits ;  first,  that  he  never  meddled  with  those  enigmas 
"which  have  puzzled  hundreds  of  generations,  and  will 
puzzle  hundreds  more  " — the  grounds  of  moral  obligation 
and  the  freedom  of  the  human  will ;  secondly,  that  he  de- 
spised speculative  theology  as  much  as  he  despised  specu- 
lative philosophy.  In  short,  his  peculiar  and  extraordinary 


102  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 


quality  was  that  he  was  an  tdiwri/c,  a  mere  common  man, 
and  that  is  precisely  why  he  was  so  great  a  philosopher. 
"It  was  because  he  dug  deep  that  he  was  able  to  pile 
high,"  deep  digging  being  apparently  the  characteristic 
of  the  common  man. 

The  point  especially  deserving  of  notice  in  this  extraor- 
dinary diatribe  is,  that  all  spiritual  religion  is  as  much 
aimed  at  as  philosophy,  though  the  attack  is  veiled  with 
great  prudence  and  skill.  But  every  word  said  against 
philosophy  would  apply  equally  against  religion.  Every 
sneer  and  gibe  flung  at  Plato,  Zeno,  and  Epictetus  would 
equally  serve  against  Thomas  a  Kempis,  St.  Francis  of 
Sales,  or  Jeremy  Taylor.  It  is  not  at  all  easy  to  deter- 
mine what  could  have  induced  Macaulay  to  commit  this 
outrage.  He  is  generally  excessively  observant  of  the 
bienseances.  Was  he  avenging  some  old  private  grudge 
against  a  Puritanical  education  ?  Had  he  become  convinced 
that  spiritual  aspirations  were  moonshine  ?  There  is  cer- 
tainly a  vehemence  in  his  onslaught  which  almost  points 
to  a  personal  injury,  as  Person  said  of  Gibbon's  attack  on 
Christianity.  In  any  case  we  must  admit  that  on  no  other 
occasion  did  Macaulay  descend  so  low  as  on  this.  No- 
where else  has  he  given  us  such  an  insight  into  the  limita- 
tions of  his  heart  and  understanding,  and  of  his  strangely 
imperfect  knowledge,  with  all  his  reading.  It  would  re- 
quire pages,  where  we  have  not  room  for  sentences,  to  ex- 
pound the  matter  fully.  Take  one  or  two  instances,  mere- 
ly because  they  are  short.  He  reproaches  the  ancient  phi* 
losophy  with  having  made  no  progress  in  eight  hundred 
years  :  "  Look  at  the  schools  of  this  wisdom  four  centu^ 
ries  before  the  Christian  era  and  four  centuries  after  that 
era.  Compare  the  men  whom  those  schools  formed  at 
those  two  periods.  Compare  Plato  and  Libanius  ;  Pericles 


m.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  103 

and  Julian.  This  philosophy  confessed,  nay,  boasted,  that 
for  every  end  but  one  it  was  useless.  Had  it  attained  that 
one  end?"  It  is  difficult  to  handle  the  sciolism  implied 
in  such  remarks  and  such  a  question.  What  had  occurred 
between  the  dates  specified — those  of  Pericles  and  Julian  ? 
Only  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  the  Romans,  the  rise 
and  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic  and  Empire,  the  invasion 
of  the  barbarians,  and  the  proximate  dissolution  of  society. 
This  is  to  count  for  nothing.  The  greatest  revolution  in 
human  annals — the  death  throes,  in  short,  of  the  old  world 
— could  not  be  expected  to  influence  the  course  and  value 
of  speculation!  The  thing  to  notice  was,  that  Libanius 
was  inferior  to  Plato,  and  Julian  to  Pericles,  and  that  set- 
tled the  point  that  the  ancient  philosophy  was  nothing  but 
cant  and  hypocrisy.  Again,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that 
it  was  through  the  perversity  of  a  few  great  minds  that 
the  blessings  of  the  experimental  philosophy  were  so  long 
withheld  from  the  world.  The  human  mind  had  been 
"misdirected;"  "trifles  occupied  the  sharp  and  vigorous 
intellects  "  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  schoolmen.  Socrates 
and  Plato  were  the  chief  authors  of  this  evil,  which  tainted 
the  whole  body  of  ancient  philosophy  "  from  the  time  of 
Plato  downwards."  Plato  has  to  bear  the  enormous  guilt 
of  having  "  done  more  than  any  other  person  towards  giv- 
ing the  minds  of  speculative  men  that  bent  which  they  re- 
tained till  they  received  from  Bacon  a  new  impulse  in  a 
diametrically  opposite  direction."  Had  it  not  been  for 
these  lamentable  aberrations  with  which  Macaulay  says  he 
has  no  patience,  we  should  have  had,  no  doubt,  diving- 
bells,  steam-engines,  and  vaccination  in  the  time  of  the 
Peloponnesian  war ;  or  why  not  say  in  the  time  of  the  Tro- 
jan war,  or  even  of  Noah's  ark  ?  That  society  and  the  hu- 
man intellect  have  laws  of  organic  growth,  thi  stages  of 


104  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

which  cannot  be  transposed,  any  more  than  the  periods  of 
youth  and  old  age  can  be  transposed  in  the  life  of  an  indi- 
vidual, was  a  conception  which  never  dawned  even  faintly  on 
Macaulay's  mind.  He  was  as  little  competent  to  speak  of 
experimental  science,  which  he  belauded,  as  of  philosophy, 
which  he  vilified.  He  says  several  times  in  various  forms 
that  science  should  only  be  cultivated  for  its  immediate 
practical  and  beneficial  results.  He  applauds  Bacon  because 
"he  valued  geometry  chiefly  if  not  solely  on  account  of 
those  uses  which  to  Plato  appeared  so  base,"  for  his  love 
of  "those  pursuits  which  directly  tend  to  improve  the 
condition  of  mankind,"  for  the  importance  ascribed  "to 
those  arts  which  increase  the  outward  comforts  of  our 
species ;"  and  he  excuses  any  over-strength  of  statement 
in  this  matter  by  saying  that  it  was  an  error  in  the  right 
direction,  and  that  he  vastly  prefers  it  to  the  opposite 
error  of  Plato.  Now,  this  shows  that  he  failed  to  grasp 
the  method  of  science  as  much  as  the  method  and  import 
of  philosophy.  Science  has  never  prospered  until  it  has 
freed  itself  from  bondage  to  the  immediate  wants  of  life 
— till  it  has  pursued  its  investigations  with  perfect  in- 
difference as  to  the  results  and  uses  to  which  they  may 
be  applied.  But  it  is  needless  to  pursue  the  subject. 
The  effect  of  the  whole  article  is  the  same  as  that  pro- 
duced by  a  man  of  rude  manners  making  his  way  into 
a  refined  and  well-bred  company.  With  an  unbecoming 
carriage  and  a  loud  voice  he  goes  up  to  the  dignified 
dames — the  ancient  Philosophies— one  after  another  and 
asks  them  what  they  do  there ;  mocks  at  their  fine  ways ; 
and  finishes  by  telling  them  roundly  that  in  his  opinion 
they  are  all  no  better  than  they  should  be.  Nothing 
that  Macaulay  has  written  has  been  more  injurious  to  his 
fame  as  a  serious  thinker. 


m.]  THE  "ESSAYS."  105 

Nevertheless,  say  what  we  will,  Macaulay's  Essays  re- 
main a  brilliant  and  fascinating  page  in  English  literature. 
The  world  is  never  persistently  mistaken  in  such  cases. 
Time  enough  has  elapsed,  since  their  publication,  to  sub- 
merge them  in  oblivion  had  they  not  contained  a  vital 
spark  of  genius  which  criticism  is  powerless  to  extinguish. 
If  not  wells  of  original  knowledge,  they  have  acted  like 
irrigating  rills  which  convey  and  distribute  the  fertilizing 
waters  from  the  fountain-head.  The  best  would  adorn 
any  literature,  and  even  the  less  successful  have  a  pict- 
uresque animation,  and  convey  an  impression  of  power 
that  will  not  easily  be  matched.  And,  again,  we  need  to 
bear  in  mind  that  they  were  the  productions  of  a  writer 
immersed  in  business,  written  in  his  scanty  moments 
of  leisure  when  most  men  would  have  rested  or  sought 
recreation.  Macaulay  himself  was  most  modest  in  his 
estimate  of  their  value,  and  resisted  their  republication  as 
long  as  he  could.  It  was  the  public  that  insisted  on  their 
re-issue,  and  few  would  be  bold  enough  to  deny  that  the 
public  was  right. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

NARRATIVE     OF     MACAULAY's     LIFE     RESUMED     UP     TO     THE 
APPEARANCE    OF    THE    HISTORY. 

[1841-1848.] 

"  SIR,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  it  is  wonderful  how  little 
Garrick  assumes.  No,  sir,  Garrick  fortunam  reverenter 
habuit.  Then,  sir,  Garrick  did  not  find,  but  made  his 
way,  to  the  tables,  the  levees,  and  almost  the  bedchambers 
of  the  great.  If  all  this  had  happened  to  me,  I  should 
have  had  a  couple  of  fellows  with  long  poles  walking 
before  me  to  knock  down  everybody  that  stood  in  the 
way."  One  is  reminded  of  these  wise  and  kindly  words 
from  the  rough  but  tender-hearted  old  moralist  when 
reflecting  on  the  uniform  success  and  prosperity  which 
attended  Macaulay  in  everything  he  undertook.  With 
the  single  exception  of  his  failing  to  secure  a  place  in  the 
Tripos  at  Cambridge,  which,  after  all,  had  no  evil  effects, 
as  he  obtained  a  Fellowship  notwithstanding,  he  did  not 
put  his  hand  to  a  thing  without  winning  loud  applause. 
In  his  story  there  are  no  failures  to  record.  The  trials 
and  straitened  means  of  his  early  years  arose  from  no 
fault  of  his.  As  soon  as  he  began  to  rebuild  the  shat- 
tered fortunes  of  his  family  the  work  went  on  without 
break  or  interruption,  and  was  triumphantly  accomplished 
before  he  had  reached  his  fortieth  year.  But  he  had 


CHAP.  IT.]  THE  ROMAN  LAYS.  107 

done  much  more  than  restore  his  material  circumstances : 
in  the  mean  while  he  had  acquired  a  wide  and  brilliant 
fame.  He'  had  made  his  way  to  the  tables,  the  levees, 
and  bedchambers  of  the  great.  A  novus  homo,  he  was 
treated  with  the  distinction  which  in  our  aristocratic  so- 
ciety was  at  that  time  nearly  always  reserved  for  the  so- 
called  "  well-born."  And  yet  he,  like  Garrick,  bore  his 
honours,  if  not  meekly,  yet  without  a  particle  of  insolence 
or  assumption,  or  the  least  symptom  that  his  head  had 
been  turned.  And  this  was  the  result,  not  of  religious 
or  philosophic  discipline,  of  a  conscious  moral  cultivation 
of  humility,  and  a  sober  spirit,  but  of  mere  sweetness 
of  nature  and  constitutional  amiability. 

After  his  fall  or,  perhaps  we  should  say,  his  rise  from 
office  he  almost  immediately  proceeded  to  tempt  fortune 
in  a  very  perilous  way.  He  put  forth  a  volume  of  poems 
— the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome.  His  eyes  were  quite  open 
to  the  risk.  To  Napier,  who  had  expressed  doubts  about 
the  venture,  he  wrote  : 

"  I  do  not  wonder  at  your  misgivingg.  I  should  have  felt  similar 
misgivings  if  I  had  learned  that  any  person,  however  distinguished 
by  talents  and  knowledge,  whom  I  knew  as  a  writer  only  by  prose 
works,  was  about  to  publish  a  volume  of  poetry — had  I  seen  adver- 
tised a  poem  by  Mackintosh,  by  Dugald  Stewart,  or  even  by  Burke,  I 
should  have  augured  nothing  but  failure ;  and  I  am  far  from  putting 
myself  on  a  level  with  the  least  of  the  three." 

Few  writers  have  surpassed  Macaulay  in  that  most  useful 
of  all  gifts,  a  clear  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  reach  and 
nature  of  his  talents.  It  never  stood  him  in  better  stead 
than  on  the  present  occasion. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  he  was  engaged  on  the  lay 
of  Horatius  when  he  was  in  Italy.  But  he  had  written 

two  Lays  while  in  India,  and  submitted  them  to  Dr.  Ai> 
H 


108  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

nold  of  Rugby,  who  had  spoken  of  them  with  high  praise. 
The  subject  had  thus  been  a  long  time  in  his  mind,  and 
the  composition,  though  no  doubt  often  interrupted,  had 
been  most  careful  and  deliberate.  Macaulay  had  the  fac- 
ulty of  rhyme  in  no  common  degree,  and  he  was  also  a 
scientific  prosodian.  He  consulted  his  friends  about  his 
verses,  and,  what  was  less  common,  he  took  their  advice 
when  they  pointed  out  defects.  Several  years  off  and  on, 
thus  employed  on  four  poems,  which  together  do  not 
amount  to  two -thirds  of  Marmion,  were  a  guarantee 
against  hasty  work ;  and  the  result  corresponds.  The  ver- 
sification of  the  Lays  is  technically  without  blemish,  and 
this  correctness  has  been  purchased  by  no  sacrifice  of 
vigour.  On  the  contrary,  Macaulay's  prose  at  its  best  is 
not  so  terse  as  his  verse.  He  had  naturally  a  tendency  to 
declamation.  In  the  Lays  this  tendency  is  almost  entirely 
suppressed,  as  if  the  greater  intensity  of  thought  needed 
for  metrical  composition  had  consumed  the  wordy  under- 
growth of  rhetoric,  and  lifted  him  into  a  clearer  region, 
where  he  saw  the  facts  with  unimpeded  vision.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  rhythm  is  some- 
what monotonous  and  mechanical.  The  melody  never 
wanders  spontaneously  into  new  and  unexpected  modula- 
tion, and  seems  rather  the  result  of  care  and  labour  than  a 
natural  gift  of  music.  Some  lines  are  strangely  harsh,  as 

"  So  spun  she,  and  so  sang  she," 

a  concourse  of  sibilants  which  can  hardly  be  spoken,  and 
would  have  shocked  a  musical  ear. 

But  the  Lays  have,  nevertheless,  very  considerable  poeti- 
cal merit,  on  which  it  is  the  more  necessary  to  dwell,  as 
there  appears  to  be  disposition  in  some  quarters  to  only 
grudgingly  allow  it,  or  even  to  deny  it.  The  marked  taste 


IT.]  "HORATIUS."  109 

of  intelligent  children  for  Macaulay's  poems  is  not  to  be 
undervalued.  It  shows,  as  Mr.  Maurice  said,  that  there  waa 
something  fresh,  young,  and  unsophisticated  in  the  mind 
of  the  writer.  But  Macaulay  has  no  reason  to  fear  a  more 
critical  tribunal.  There  is  a  directness  of  presentation  in 
his  best  passages,  the  poetical  result  is  so  independent  of 
any  artifice  of  language  or  laboured  pomp  of  diction,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  arises  so  naturally  from  mere  accuracy  of 
drawing  and  clear  vision  of  the  fact,  that  the  question  is 
not  whether  his  work  is  good,  but  whether  in  its  kind  it  has 
often  been  surpassed.  Mr.  Kuskin  insists  strongly  on  4<  the 
peculiar  dignity  possessed  by  all  passages  which  limit  their 
expression  to  the  pure  fact,  and  leave  the  hearer  to  gather 
what  he  can  from  it."1  This  acknowledged  sign  of  strength 
is  very  frequent  in  Macaulay's  Lays.  Few  writers  indulge 
less  in  the  pathetic  fallacy  than  he.  Line  after  line  con- 
tains nothing  but  the  most  simple  statement  of  fact  in 
quite  unadorned  language.  For  instance : 

"  But  with  a  crash  like  thunder 

Fell  every  loosened  beam, 
And,  like  a  dam,  the  mighty  wreck 

Lay  right  athwart  the  stream ; 
And  a  long  shout  of  triumph 

Rose  from  the  walls  of  Rome, 
As  to  the  highest  turret-tops 

Was  splashed  the  yellow  foam,w 

Every  statement  here  might  be  made  with  propriety  by 
a  simple  man,  as,  e.  g.,  a  carpenter  who  had  witnessed  the 
event — the  noise  of  the  falling  fabric,  its  position  in  the 
river,  the  exulting  shout  which  naturally  followed,  the 
splash  of  yellow  foam — no  otiose  epithet,  as  the  Tiber  was 
the  stream.  Each  line  might  form  part  of  a  bald  report, 
*  Modern  Painters.  voL  in.  c,  12. 


110  MACAULAY.  [CHAP 

and  yet  the  whole  is  graphic  simply  because  it  is  literally 
true.  The  art,  like  all  art,  of  course  consists  in  seeing 
and  seizing  the  right  facts  and  giving  them  prominence. 
Macaulay's  power  of  drawing,  at  once  accurate  and  char- 
acteristic, gives  to  his  descriptions  at  times  a  sharpness  of 
outline  which  seems  borrowed  from  sculpture : 

*  Bound  turned  he,  as  not  deigning 

Those  craven  ranks  to  see ; 
Nought  spake  he  to  Lars  Porsena ; 

To  Sextua  nought  spake  he. 
But  he  saw  on  Falatinus 

The  white  porch  of  his  home, 
And  he  spake  to  the  noble  river 

That  rolls  by  the  towers  of  Rome: 

441 0  Tiber!  Father  Tiber! 

To  whom  the  Romans  pray, 
A  Roman's  life,  a  Roman's  arms, 

Take  thou  in  charge  this  day  I* 
&>  he  spake,  and  speaking  sheathed 

The  good  sword  by  his  side, 
And  with  his  harness  on  his  back 

Plunged  headlong  in  the  tide,n 

Is  there  not  a  definite  objectiveness  of  presentation  here 
almost  statuesque  ? 

Macaulay's  calmness  and  self-restraint  in  verse  are  very 
marked  as  compared  with  the  opposite  qualities  which  he 
sometimes  displays  in  prose.  Occasionally  he  reaches  a 
note  of  tragic  solemnity  without  effort,  and  by  the  simplest 
means,  as  in  the  visions  which  haunted  Sextus : 

**  Lavinium  and  Laurentum 

Had  on  the  left  their  post, 
With  all  the  banners  of  the  marsh, 
And  banners  of  the  coast. 


IT.]  MACAULAY  AND  SCOTT.  Ill 

Their  leader  was  false  Sextus 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame; 
With  restless  pace  and  haggard  face 

To  his  last  field  he  came. 
Men  said  he  saw  strange  vision* 

Which  none  beside  might  see, 
And  that  strange  sounds  were  in  his  ears 

Which  none  might  hear  but  he. 
A  woman  fair  and  stately, 

But  pale  as  are  the  dead, 
Oft  through  the  watches  of  the  night 

Sat  spinning  by  hia  bed ; 
And  as  she  plied  the  distaff, 

In  a  sweet  voice  and  low 
She  sang  of  great  old  houses, 

And  fights  fought  long  ago. 
So  spun  she,  and  so  sang  she, 

Until  the  east  was  gray, 
Then  pointed  to  her  bleeding  breast, 

And  shrieked,  and  fled  away." 

Bat  his  poetical  merit,  considerable  as  it  was,  is  not  the 
most  important  and  interesting  feature  in  the  Lays  of 
Ancient  Rome.  In  literary  classification  Macaulay,  of 
course,  belongs  to  what  is  called  the  romantic  school ;  he 
could  not  do  otherwise,  living  when  he  did.  He  was  five 
years  old  when  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  was  published, 
and  he  received  in  the  impressionable  period  of  youth  the 
full  impact  of  the  Waverley  novels.  We  have  already 
seen  how  much  they  contributed  to  form  his  notions  of 
history.  It  was  not  likely  when  he  took  to  writing  ballads 
that  the  influence  of  Scott  would  be  less  than  when  he 
wrote  prose.  Accordingly  we  meet  with  a  reminiscence 
and  echo  of  Scott  all  through  the  Lays.  This  was  unavoid- 
able, and  Macaulay  seeks  in  no  wise  to  disguise  the  fact. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  one  could  resemble  Scott  less  in  hid 


112  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

deeper  sympathies  and  cast  of  mind  than  Macanlay.  Scott 
had  the  instinct  of  a  wild  animal  for  the  open  air,  the  for- 
est, the  hill-side.  He 

"  Loved  nature  like  a  horned  cow, 
Deer  or  bird  or  carribou," 

and  thought  that  if  he  did  not  see  the  heather  once  a  year 
he  should  die.  Macaulay  was  a  born  citadin,  and  cared  for 
nature  hardly  at  all.  His  sister  doubted  whether  any  sce- 
nery ever  pleased  him  so  much  as  his  own  Holly  Lodge,  or 
Mr.  Thornton's  garden  at  Battersea  Rise.  Scott,  again,  was 
full  of  the  romantic  spirit.  His  mind  dwelt  by  preference 
on  the  past,  which  was  lovely  to  him.  Macaulay  had  an 
American  belief  and  delight  in  modern  material  progress, 
and  was  satisfied  that  no  age  in  the  past  was  ever  as  good 
as  the  present.  Scott's  notions  of  politics  were  formed 
on  the  feudal  pattern.  He  could  understand  and  admire 
fealty,  the  devotion  of  vassal  to  lord,  the  personal  attach- 
ment of  clansman  to  his  chief,  but  of  the  reasoned  obedi- 
ence and  loyalty  of  the  citizen  to  the  state,  to  the  polity  of 
which  he  forms  a  part,  Scott  seems  as  good  as  unconscious. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  quote,  from  his  poems  at  least,  a 
passage  which  implied  any  sympathy  with  civil  duty  and 
sacrifice  to  the  res  publica,  to  the  common  weal.  As  Mr. 
Ruskin  says,  his  sympathies  are  rather  with  outlaws  and 
rebels,  especially  under  the  "  greenwood  tree,"  and  he  has 
but  little  objection  to  rebellion  even  to  a  king,  provided  it 
be  on  private  and  personal  grounds,  and  not  systematic 
or  directed  to  great  public  aims.  This  was  the  genuine 
feudal  spirit,  which  ignored  the  state  and  the  correlated 
notion  of  citizenship,  and  trusted  for  social  cohesion  to 
the  fragile  tie  of  the  liegeman's  sworn  fidelity  to  his  suze- 
rain, J^othing  stewed  Scott's  blood  more  than  military 


iv.]  MACAULAY  AND  SCOTT.  113 

prowess,  the  conflict  of  armed  men,  but  he  remains  con~ 
tented  with  the  conflict ;  he  cares  little  in  what  cause  men 
fight,  so  long  as  they  do  fight  and  accomplish  "  deeds  of 
arms."  It  may  be  for  love,  or  the  point  of  honor,  or 
because  the  chief  commands  it,  or  merely  for  the  luxury 
of  exchanging  blows ;  but  for  the  patriotic  valour  which 
fights  for  hearth  and  home,  and  native  city,  he  has  hardly 
a  word  to  say. 

On  opening  Macaulay's  Lays  we  find  ourselves  in  a  world 
which  is  the  exact  opposite  of  this ; — civic  patriotism,  zeal 
for  the  public  weal,  whether  against  foreign  foe  or  domes- 
tic tyrant — these  are  his  sources  of  inspiration.  And  there 
is  thus  a  curious  contrast,  almost  contradiction,  between 
the  outward  form  of  the  poems  and  their  contents.  The 
real  romantic  ballad  and  its  modern  imitations  properly 
refer  to  times  in  which  the  notion  of  a  state,  composed 
of  citizens  who  support  it  on  reasoned  grounds,  has  not 
emerged.  The  polls  is  not  to  be  found  in  Homer,  or  in 
Chevy  Chase,  or  in  Scott.  In  Macaulay's  ballads  the  State 
is  everything.  His  love  for  ordered  civil  life,  his  zeal  for 
the  abstract  idea  of  government  instituted  for  the  well- 
being  of  all  who  live  under  it,  are  as  intense  in  him  as  they 
were  in  the  breast  of  Pericles.  Thus  the  key-note  of  the 
ballads  is  as  remote  as  possible  from  that  of  Scott,  and  in- 
deed of  all  medisevalists,  and  not  only  remote,  but  very 
much  nobler.  The  fighting  in  the  Lays  does  not  arise 
from  mere  reckless,  light-hearted  ferocity, 

"  That  marked  the  foeman's  feudal  hate," 

but  from  lofty  social  union,  which  leads  the  brave  to  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  common  good. 

"  For  Romans  in  itome's  quarrel 
Spared  neither  land  nor  gold, 
Nor  son  nor  wife,  nor  limb  nor  life, 
In  the  brave  days  of  old," 


114  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

And  this  higher  moral  strain  has  ,its  poetic  reward.  Ma- 
caulay  attains  a  heroism  of  sentiment  which  Scott  never 
reaches.  Compare  the  almost  effeminate  sob  over  James 
killed  at  Flodden : 

"  He  saw  the  wreck  his  rashness  wrought : 
Reckless  of  life  he  desperate  fought, 

And  fell  on  Flodden  plain. 
And  well  in  death  his  trusty  brand 
Firm  clenched  within  his  manly  hand 

Beseemed  the  monarch  slain ; 
But  0 !  how  changed  since  yon  blithe  night ! 
Gladly  I  turn  me  from  the  sight 

Unto  my  tale  again." 

Compare  this  with  the  exultant  and  fiery  joy  over  the 
death  of  Valerius : 

XVIII. 

"  But  fiercer  grew  the  fighting 

Around  Valerius  dead ; 
For  Titus  dragged  him  by  the  foot 

And  Aulus  by  the  head. 
*  On,  Latines,  on  !'  quoth  Titus, 

1  See  how  the  rebels  fly !' 
'  Romans,  stand  firm,'  quoth  Aulus, 

'  And  win  this  fight  or  die. 
They  must  not  give  Valerius 

To  raven  and  to  kite ; 
For  aye  Valerius  loathed  the  wrong, 

And  aye  upheld  the  right ; 
And  for  your  wives  and  babies 

In  the  front  rank  he  fell. 
Now  play  the  men  for  the  good  house 

That  loves  the  people  well.' 

XIX. 

"  Then  tenfold  round  the  body 

The  roar  of  battle  rose, 
Like  the  roar  of  a  burning  forest 
When  a  strong  north  wind  bl6wf;> 


iv.J  "VIRGINIA."  Hi 

Now  backward,  and  now  forward, 

Rocked  furiously  the  fray, 
Till  none  could  see  Valerius, 

And  none  wist  where  he  lay. 
For  shivered  arms  and  ensigns 

Were  heaped  there  in  a  mound, 
And  corpses  stiff,  and  dying  men 

That  writhed  and  gnawed  the  ground ; 
And  wounded  horses  kicking, 

And  snorting  purple  foam : 
Right  well  did  such  a  couch  beftt 

A  consular  of  Rome" 

Macaulay  had  thoroughly  assimilated  the  lofty  civic 
spirit  of  the  ancients  —  a  spirit  which  was  seriously  in- 
jured when  not  wholly  destroyed  in  the  Middle  Ages  by 
Feudalism  and  Catholicism  together. 

The  lay  of  Virginia  is  of  less  even  and  sustained  excel- 
lence than  the  two  lays  which  precede  it.  The  speech  of 
Icilius  and  the  description  of  the  tumult  which  followed 
are  admirable  for  spirit  and  vigour.  It  may  be  noticed 
generally  that  Macaulay  is  always  very  successful  in  his 
descriptions  of  excited  crowds — he  does  it  con  amore — he 
had  none  of  the  disdain  for  the  multitude  which  Carlyle 
manifests  in  and  out  of  season.  On  this  occasion  the  lib- 
eral politician  combined  with  the  artist  to  produce  a  pow- 
erful effect.  He  had  a  noble  hatred  of  tyranny,  and  his 
sympathies  were  wholly  with  the  many  as  against  the  few. 
There  was  a  righteous  fierceness  in  him  at  the  sight  of 
wrong,  which  is  the  stuff  of  which  true  patriots  in  troubled 
times  are  made. 

"  And  thrice  the  tossing  Forum  set  up  a  frightful  yell : 
'  See,  see,  thou  dog !  what  thou  hast  done,  and  hide  thy  shame  in  hell. 
Thou  that  wouldst  make  our  maidens  slaves  must  first  make  slaves 

of  men. 

Tribunes  !  hurrah  for  Tribunes !    Down  with  the  wicked  ten  I' " 
I 


116  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

This  speech  of  Icilius  is  no  closet  rhetoric  composed  by 
a  man  who  had  never  addressed  a  mob ;  it  is  the  speech 
of  a  practised  orator  who  knows  how  to  rouse  passion  and 
set  men's  hearts  on  fire.  It  is  also  a  thoroughly  dramatic 
speech ;  good  in  itself,  but  made  much  better  by  the  situa- 
tion of  the  supposed  speaker.  From  a  modern  point  of 
view  it  is  better  than  the  speech  which  Livy  makes  Icilius 
deliver,  with  its  references  to  Roman  law.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  speech  of  Yirginius  to  his  (laughter,  just  before 
he  stabs  her,  is  quite  as  bad  as  that  of  Icilius  is  good.  It 
is  a  singular  thing  that  Macaulay,  whose  sensibility  and 
genuine  tenderness  of  nature  are  quite  beyond  doubt,  had 
almost  no  command  of  the  pathetic.  The  explanation 
seems  to  be  that  he  really  was  too  sensitive.  He  says 
in  his  diary :  "  I  generally  avoid  novels  which  are  said  to 
have  much  pathos.  The  suffering  which  they  produce  is 
to  me  a  very  real  suffering,  and  of  that  I  have  quite  enough 
without  them."  The  fact,  though  highly  creditable  to  his 
heart,  shows  a  marked  limitation  of  range,  and  excludes 
him  from  the  class  of  artists  by  nature  who  are  at  once 
susceptible  and  masters  of  emotion.  Feeling  must  have 
subsided  into  serene  calm  before  it  can  be  successfully 
embodied  in  art.  In  any  case  Macaulay  seems  to  have 
been  unusually  incapable  of,  or  averse  to,  the  expression 
of  tender  and  pathetic  sentiment.  He  has  in  his  corre- 
spondence and  diaries  more  than  once  occasion  to  refer 
to  the  deaths  of  friends  whom  we  know  he  loved,  and  he 
always  does  so  in  a  curiously  awkward  manner,  as  if  he 
were  ashamed  of  his  feelings,  and  wished  to  hide  them 
even  from  himself.  "Jeffrey  is  gone,  dear  fellow;  I  loved 
him  as  much  as  it  is  easy  to  love  a  man  who  belongs  to 
an  older  generation.  .  .  .  After  all,  dear  Jeffrey's  death  is 
a  matter  for  mourning."  lie  had  been  op  terras  of 


IV.]  "THE  PROPHECY  OF  CAPYS."  117 

affectionate  intimacy  with  Jeffrey  for  more  than  twenty- 
five  years.  On  hearing  that  Harry  Hallam  was  dying  at 
Sienna  he  says :  "  What  a  trial  for  my  dear  old  friend !" 
(The  historian.)  "  I  feel  for  the  lad  himself  too.  Much 
distressed,  I  dined,  however.  We  dine,  unless  the  blow 
comes  very,  very  near  the  heart  indeed."  There  is  evi- 
dently a  deliberate  avoidance  of  giving  way  to  the  ex- 
pression of  grief.  And  yet  when  he  comes  across  some 
of  his  sister  Margaret's  letters  twenty-two  years  after  her 
death,  he  is  overcome,  and  bursts  into  tears.  Macaulay 
could  not  hold  the  more  passionate  emotions  sufficiently 
at  arm's  length  to  describe  them  properly  when  he  felt 
them.  And  when  they  were  passed  his  imagination  did 
not  reproduce  them  with  a  clearness  available  for  art.  A 
man  on  the  point  of  stabbing  his  daughter  to  save  her 
from  dishonour  would  certainly  not  think  of  making  the 
stagy  declamation  which  Macaulay  has  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Virginius.  The  frigid  conceits  about  "  Capua's  marble 
halls,"  and  the  kite  gloating  upon  his  prey,  are  the  last 
things  that  would  occur  to  a  mind  filled  with  such  awful 
passions.  Macaulay  would  have  done  better  on  this  occa- 
sion to  copy  the  impressive  brevity  of  Livy,  "  Hoc  te  uno, 
quo  possum  modo,  filia  in  libertatem  vindico."  If  it  be 
said  that  the  object  was  not  historical  or  even  poetical 
verisimilitude,  but  to  write  an  exciting  ballad,  such  as 
might  be  supposed  to  stir  the  contemporaries  of  Licinius 
and  Sextius,  the  answer  will  be  given  presently  in  reference 
to  a  parallel  but  much  simpler  case. 

The  Prophecy  of  Capys  is  distinctly  languid  as  a  whole, 
though  it  has  some  fine  stanzas,  and  contains  one  of  the 
most  delicate  touches  of  colour  that  Macaulay  ever  laid  on : 

"  And  Venus  loves  the  whispers 
Of  plighted  youth  and  maid, 


118  MACAULAY.  [CHAP 

In  April's  ivory  moonlight, 
Beneath  the  chestnut's  shade." 

The  unclouded  moon  of  Italy  lighting  up  the  limestone 
rocks  produces  just  the  nuance  of  green  ivory.  Generally 
his  sense  of  colour  is  weak  compared  with  Scott,  whose 
eye  for  colour  is  such  that  while  reading  him  we  seem 
to  be  gazing  on  the  purple  glory  of  the  hills  when  the 
heather  is  in  bloom:  Macaulay  is  gray  and  dun.  It  is 
curious  to  compare  how  Macaulay  and  Scott  deal  with 
the  same  situation,  that  of  a  person  anxiously  watching 
for  the  appearance  of  another.  Scott  does  it  by  putting 
the  sense  of  sight  on  the  alert : 

"  The  noble  dame  on  turret  high, 

Who  waits  her  gallant  knight, 
Looks  to  the  western  beam  to  spy 

The  flash  of  armour  bright; 
The  village  maid,  with  hand  on  brow 

The  level  ray  to  shade, 
Upon  the  foot-path  watches  now 

For  Conn's  darkening  plaid" 

Macaulay  puts  the  sense  of  hearing  on  guard: 

"  Since  the  first  gleam  of  daylight 

Sempronius  had  not  ceased 
To  listen  for  the  rushinff 
Of  horse-hoofs  from  the  east." 

A  keen  sense  of  colour  is  the  peculiar  note,  one  might 
say  the  badge,  of  the  romantic  school,  and  this  is  true 
even  of  musicians  (compare  Handel,  Bach,  Haydn,  with 
Beethoven,  Schumann,  and  Wagner).  It  is  not  without 
interest  that  we  find  Macaulay  a  sort  of  forced  disciple  of 
the  romantic  school,  differing  from  it  in  this  as  well  as 
in  the  other  peculiarities  above  mentioned. 

The  Prophecy  qf  Capys  suggests  a  sense  of  fatigue 


IV.]  "THE  PROPHECY  OF  CAPYS."  119 

and  flagging  inspiration  in  the  writer  which  are  not  with- 
out a  certain  significance,  and  may  help  to  throw  light  on 
a  question  which  has  a  certain  interest  for  some  persons. 
The  question  is,  whether  Macaulay  should  be  considered 
a  poet  or  not.  "  Some  fastidious  critics,"  says  Mr.  Tre- 
velyan,  "  think  it  proper  to  deny  him  that  title."  Now, 
if  by  this  is  meant  that  he  not  only  was  no  poet  but 
wrote  no  poetry,  the  statement  is  obviously  excessive  and 
unfair.  To  have  written  poetry  does  not  necessarily  con- 
stitute a  man  a  poet.  We  need  to  know,  before  according 
that  title  to  a  man,  what  relative  proportion  the  poetic 
vein  bore  to  the  rest  of  his  nature ,'  how  far  poetry  was 
his  natural  and  spontaneous  mode  of  utterance.  It  is 
evident  that  quantity  as  well  as  quality  has  to  be  con- 
sidered. Should  we  consider  the  writer  of  the  best  sonnet 
that  ever  was  written  a  poet  if  he  never  had  written 
anything  else?  Was  Single-speech  Hamilton  an  orator? 
When  Johnson  called  Gray  a  "  barren  rascal,"  he  implied 
in  coarse  language  a  truth  of  some  importance,  and  passed 
a  just  criticism  on  Gray.  Facile  abundance  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  merit  in  itself,  but  it  at  least  points  to  natural 
fertility  of  the  soil,  and  its  adaptation  to  the  crop  pro- 
duced. On  the  other  hand,  rare  exotics  painfully  reared 
by  artificial  means,  have  not  often  more  than  a  fancy 
value.  Shelley  writing  the  twelve  books  of  the  Revolt 
of  Islam  in  a  few  months,  Byron  writing  the  first  canto 
of  Don  Juan  in  a  few  weeks,  showed  by  so  doing  that 
poetry  was  the  spontaneous  product  of  their  minds,  that 
the  labour  was  small  compared  with  the  greatness  of  the 
result,  and  that,  in  short,  the  natural  richness  of  the  soil 
was  the  cause  of  their  fertility.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  is  manifest  that  Macaulay  was  no  poet,  though  certainly 
he  has  written  poetry.  Directed  by  an  immense  knowl- 


120  MACAULAY.  [CHIP. 

edge  of  literature  and  a  cultivated  taste  —  by  watching 
for  the  movements  of  inspiration,  by  the  careful  storage 
of  every  raindrop  that  fell  from  the  clouds  of  fancy,  he 
collected  a  small  vessel  full  of  clear,  limpid  water,  the  spar- 
kling brightness  of  which  it  is  unjust  not  to  acknowledge. 
But  the  process  was  too  slow  and  laborious  to  justify  us 
in  calling  him  a  poet.  What  a  different  gale  impelled 
him  when  he  wrote  prose !  He  has  only  to  shake  out  the 
sheet,  and  his  sails  become  concave  and  turgid  with  the 
breeze.  That  is  to  say,  prose  was  his  vocation,  poetry 
was  not.  But  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  ad- 
mire Horatius,  as  one  of  the  best  ballads  in  the  language. 
As  Lessing  wrote  dramas  by  dint  of  critical  acumen,  with- 
out, according  to  his  own  conviction,  any  natural  dram- 
atic talent,  so  Macaulay  wrote  two  or  three  graceful  poems 
by  the  aid  of  great  culture  and  trained  literary  taste. 

A  question  was  left  unanswered  on  a  former  page,  and 
reference  was  made  to  a  parallel  case.  The  question  was, 
whether  such  a  lay  as  that  of  Virginia  was  in  any  degree 
more  likely  to  represent  an  original  lost  lay  written  at  the 
time  of  the  Licinian  Rogations  than  one  written  at  the 
Decemvirate.  One  of  Macaulay's  best  ballads  after  the 
Lays  may  help  us  to  answer  the  question.  The  Battle 
of  Ivry,  though  not  so  careful  and  finished  in  language 
as  the  Lays,  is  equal  to  any  of  them  in  fire.  It  is  full 
also  of  what  is  called  local  colour  and  those  picturesque 
touches  which  delight  the  admirers  of  the  pseudo-antique. 
Now,  it  happens  that  we  have  a  Huguenot  lay  on  this 
very  subject,  and  it  is  interesting  to  compare  the  genuine 
article  with  the  modern  imitation.  The  romance  and 
chivalry  which  Macaulay,  following  the  taste  of  his  time, 
has  infused  into  his  ballad  are  entirely  wanting  in  the 
Huguenot  song,  which  is  very  little  more  than  a  dull  and 


ir.J  HUGUENOT  BALLAD.  121 

somewhat  fierce  hymn  with  a  strong  Old  Testament 
flavour.  In  the  modern  poem  the  real  local  colour,  the 
real  sentiments  with  which  a  Huguenot  regarded  the 
defeat  of  the  League,  are  omitted,  and  replaced  by  pict- 
uresque and  graceful  sentiments,  against  which  the  only 
thing  to  be  said  is  that  they  are  entirely  wanting  in  his- 
torical fidelity  and  truth.  Even  matters  of  fact  are 
incorrectly  given.  No  one  would  infer  from  Macaulay's 
ballad  that  Henry  IV.'s  army  contained  the  flower  of  the 
French  nobility,  Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant;  and  as 
for  the  "  lances  "  and  "  thousand  spears  in  rest "  with  which 
he  arms  Henry's  knights,  it  was  one  of  the  latter's  mili- 
tary innovations  to  have  suppressed  and  replaced  them 
by  sabres  and  pistols,  far  more  efficacious  weapons  at 
close  quarters.  But  the  romantic,  chivalrous,  and  joyous 
tone  is  that  which  most  contrasts  with  the  gloomy,  re- 
ligious spirit  of  the  original.  The  song  is  supposed  to 
be  made  in  the  name  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  who  gives  all 
the  glory  to  God.  Two  or  three  stanzas  out  of  twenty 
will  be  sufficient  to  quote : 

"  Je  chante  ton  honneur  sous  1'effect  de  mes  armes, 
A  ta  juste  grandeur  je  rapporte  le  tout, 
Car,  du  commencement  du  milieu  jusqu'au  bout, 
Toy  seul  m'as  guaranty  au  plus  fort  des  allarmes. 

"Du  plus  haut  de  ton  Ciel  regardant  en  la  terre, 
Meprisant  leur  audace  et  des  graves  sourcis, 
Desdaignant  ces  mutins,  soudain  tu  les  as  mis 
Au  plus  sanglant  malheur  que  sceut  porter  la  guerre. 

"  Le  jour  cesse  plustost  que  la  chasse  ne  cesse ; 
Tout  ce  camp  desole  ne  se  peut  asseurer, 
Et  a  peine  la  nuict  les  laisse  respirer, 
Car  les  miens  courageux  les  poursuyvoyent  sans  cesse."1 

1  Le  Chansonnier  Huguenot,  du  xvie  siecle,  vol.  ii.  p.  316. 


122  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

So  we  see  that  the  chivalrous  humanitarian  sentiments 
which  Macaulay  has  put  in  the  mouth  of  his  Huguenot 
bard  are  without  foundation. 

"  But  out  spake  gentle  Henry :  '  No  Frenchman  is  my  foe ; 
Down,  down  with  every  foreigner,  but  let  your  brethren  go.* 
Oh !  was  there  ever  such  a  knight,  in  friendship  or  in  war, 
As  our  sovereign  lord,  King  Henry,  the  soldier  of  Navarre  ?' " 

"  Beaucoup  de  fantassins  fran§ais  furent  neanmoins  sabres 
ou  arquebuses  dans  la  premiere  f ureur  de  la  victoire !  la 
deroute  fut  au  nioins  aussi  sanglante  que  le  combat." 
Now,  the  question  mooted  was  as  to  the  probability  of 
these  ballads  having  any  historical  fidelity  or  verisimili- 
tude. With  regard  to  a  ballad  not  three  hundred  years 
old,  we  find  one  of  them  has  none.  What  is  the  proba- 
bility of  those  which  pretend  to  go  back  a  good  deal  over 
two  thousand  years  being  more  accurate  ? 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the  question 
whether  we  can  honestly  compliment  and  congratulate 
Macaulay  on  his  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome.  The  preceding 
remarks,  it  is  hoped,  show  no  tendency  to  morose  hyper- 
criticism.  But  does  it  raise  one's  opinion  of  Macaulay's 
earnest  sincerity  of  mind  to  find  him  devoting  some  con- 
siderable time  to  the  production  of  what  he  candidly  ad- 
mitted to  be  but  trifles,  though  "  scholar-like  and  not  in- 
elegant trifles  ?"  He  could  very  well  lay  his  finger  on  the 
defects  of  Bulwer's  Last  Days  of  Pompeii :  "  It  labours," 
he  says,  "  under  the  usual  faults  of  all  works  in  which  it 
is  attempted  to  give  moderns  a  glimpse  of  ancient  man- 
ners. After  all,  between  us  and  them  there  is  a  great 
gulf  which  no  learning  will  enable  a  man  to  clear."  At 
the  very  time  he  made  this  entry  in  his  journal  he  was 
composing  his  lay  on  Horatius,  a  much  more  difficult  task 


iv.]  THE  LOVE  OF  TRUTH.  128 

than  Bulwer's,  for  our  knowledge  of  Roman  manners  un- 
der the  empire  may  be  said  to  be  intimate  and  exact  as 
compared  with  our  knowledge  of  Roman  manners  in  the 
semi-mythic  period  of  the  early  republic.  Was  it  a  wor- 
thy occupation  for  a  serious  scholar  to  spend  his  time  in 
producing  mere  fancy  pictures,  which  could  have  no  value 
beyond  a  certain  prettiness,  "  in  the  prolongation  from  age 
to  age  of  romantic  historical  descriptions  instead  of  sift- 
ed truth?"1  Could  we  imagine  Grote  or  Mommsen,  or 
Ranke  or  Freeman  engaged  in  such  a  way  without  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  degradation  ?  This  is  not  making  much  of  a 
small  matter ;  it  is  really  important,  reaching  down,  if  you 
consider  it  well,  to  the  deeper  elements  of  character  and 
primary  motive.  Macaulay's  love  and  pursuit  of  truth, 
which  he  imagined  to  be  dominant  passions  with  him, 
were  relatively  feeble.  The  subject  has  already  been  re- 
ferred to.  It  is  strange  to  see  how  much  he  deceived 
himself  on  this  point.  In  the  ambitious  and  wordy  verses 
he  composed  on  the  evening  of  his  defeat  at  Edinburgh 
he  feigns  that  all  the  Fairies  passed  his  cradle  by  without 
a  blessing,  except  the  Fairy  Queen  of  Knowledge ;  and 
she,  the  "  mightiest  and  the  best,"  pronounced : 

"  Yes ;  thou  wilt  love  me  with  exceeding  love." 

And  the  three  illustrious  predecessors  whom  in  this  par- 
ticular he  wishes  most  to  resemble,  and  who  are  alone 
mentioned,  are  the  three  oddly  chosen  names  of  Bacon, 
Hyde,  and  Milton,  in  all  of  whom  we  may  confidently 
say  that  the  love  of  truth  was  not  the  prominent  and 
striking  feature  of  their  character  and  genius.  Of  Bacon, 
Macaulay  himself  has  rather  overstated,  while  he  deplored, 
the  weakness  of  his  love  of  truth  as  compared  to  his  love 

1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  iii.  c.  5 
I       6* 


124  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

of  place  and  honours.  What  Hyde  has  to  do  in  such  com- 
pany more  than  other  statesmen,  ancient  or  modern,  it  is 
difficult  to  see.  And  in  what  way  did  Milton  show  a  love 
of  truth  more  than  any  other  poet?  Macaulay's  notion 
of  the  sentiment  he  claimed  seems  to  have  been  abundant- 
ly vague.  .  Kepler  verifying  his  laws  and  going  over  the 
calculations  one  hundred  and  fifty  times,  in  the  mean  while 
writing  almanacks  to  keep  him  from  starving;  Newton 
working  out  his  theory  of  gravitation  for  years,  and  mod- 
estly putting  it  aside,  because  the  erroneous  data  on  which 
he  calculated  led  to  incorrect  results,  then  on  corrected 
data  writing  the  Principia;  nay,  Franklin  running  an  un= 
known  risk  of  his  life  by  identifying  by  means  of  his  kite 
electricity  with  lightning ;  and  countless  other  loyal  servants 
of  science  might  have  been  cited  with  relevancy  as  types 
of  lovers  of  truth.  It  is  a  misuse  of  language  to  confuse  a 
general  love  of  literature,  or  a  very  sensible  zeal  in  getting 
up  the  materials  for  historical  scene-painting,  with  the  stern 
resolution  which  lays  siege  to  nature's  secrets,  and  will  not 
desist  till  they  are  surrendered.  But  such  pains  are  under- 
taken only  at  the  bidding  of  a  passionate  desire  for  an  an- 
swer by  minds  which  can  perceive  the  test-problems  which 
have  not  yet  capitulated,  but  which  must  be  reduced  before 
any  further  advance  into  the  Unknown  can  be  safely  made. 
It  is  a  peculiarity  of  Macaulay's  mind  that  he  rarely  sees 
problems,  that  he  is  not  stopped  by  difficulties  out  of 
which  he  anxiously  seeks  an  issue.  We  never  find  him 
wondering  with  suspended  judgment  in  what  direction 
his  course  may  lie.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  seldom  any 
doubt  or  difficulty  about  anything — his  mind  is  always 
made  up,  and  he  has  a  prompt  answer  for  every  question. 
We  may  without  scruple  say  that  the  course  of  a  genuine 
love  of  truth  has  never  run  so  smooth.  Here  was  the 


iv.j  A  PERIOD  OF  IRRESOLUTION.  126 

early  history  of  Rome  full  of  difficulties  which  clamoured 
for  further  research  and  elucidation.  The  subject  had  been 
just  sufficiently  worked  to  whet  the  curiosity  and  interest 
of  an  inquiring  mind.  There  were  not  many  men  in  Eu- 
rope more  fitted  by  classical  attainments  to  take  the  prob- 
lems suggested  in  hand,  and  advance  them  a  stage  nearer 
to  a  correct  solution.  Macaulay  did  not  consider  the  mat- 
ter in  this  light  at  all.  To  have  written  a  scholar -like  essay 
on  early  Roman  history  would  have  been  to  write  for  a  few 
score  readers  in  the  English  and  German  universities.  The 
love  of  truth  which  he  imagined  that  he  possessed  would 
have  directed  him  into  that  course.  But  if  he  had  taken 
it  his  biographer  would  most  certainly  not  have  been  able 
to  inform  us  of  anything  so  imposing  as  this :  "  Eighteen 
thousand  of  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  were  sold  in  ten 
years,  forty  thousand  in  twenty  years,  and  by  June,  1875, 
upwards  of  a  hundred  thousand  copies  had  passed  into 
the  hands  of  readers." 

Macaulay  did  not  after  leaving  office  avail  himself  of  his 
leisure  to  resume  his  interrupted  history  with  the  zeal  and 
promptitude  that  might  have  been  expected.  Besides 
the  Lays,  he  allowed  other  and  even  less  important  things 
to  waste  his  time.  He  was  by  no  means  so  resolute  in 
resisting  the  blandishments  of  society  as  he  should  have 
been,  and  as  he  afterwards  became.  "  I  have  had  so  much 
time  occupied  by  politics  and  by  the  society  which  at 
this  season  fills  London  that  I  have  written  nothing  for 
some  weeks,"  he  wrote  to  Macvey  Napier.  He  would  have 
shown  more  robustness  of  character  and  a  more  creditable 
absorption  in  his  work,  if  he  had  courageously  renounced 
for  good  and  all  both  society  and  politics,  now  that  he 
was  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  free  to  devote  all  his  ener- 
gies to  a  great  work.  Instead  of  that,  he  loitered  for  fully 


126  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

three  years  before  he  threw  himself  with  passionate  single- 
hearted  concentration  on  his  History.  This  shows  that  the 
book,  after  all,  was  not  generated  in  the  deeper  and  more 
earnest  parts  of  his  nature,  but  came  mostly  from  the  fancy 
and  understanding.  Or  perhaps  we  should  not  be  very 
wrong  if  we  surmise  that  depth  and  earnestness  were  some- 
what wanting  in  him.  He  had  no  latent  beat  of  sustained 
enthusiasm,  either  scientific,  political,  or  artistic.  By  a 
vigorous  spurt  he  could  write  a  brilliant  article,  whicn 
rarely  required  more  than  a  few  weeks.  His  ambition, 
which,  like  all  his  passions,  was  moderate  and  amiable,  was 
largely  satisfied  by  the  very  considerable  honours  which 
he  acquired  by  his  contributions  to  the  blue-and-yellow 
Review;  he  had  none  of  the  fierce  and  relentless  thirst  for 
a  great  fame  which  drives  some  men  into  wrapt  isolation, 
where  they  are  free  to  nurse  and  indulge  their  moods  of 
creative  passion.  Neither  was  he  under  the  dominion  of 
a  great  thought  which  hedges  a  man  with  solitude  even 
in  a  crowd.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only  just  to  remem- 
ber that  the  pressure  put  upon  him  to  leave  his  work  was 
severe.  Both  in  Parliament  and  the  Edinburgh  Review 
he  was  able  to  render  services  which  were  not  likely  to 
be  foregone,  by  those  who  needed  them,  without  a  hard 
struggle.  For  nearly  twenty  years  the  quarterly  organ  of 
the  Whigs  had  enjoyed  a  new  lease  of  popularity  and 
power  through  his  contributions.  In  the  House  of  Com- 
mons the  beaten  and  dejected  Whigs  were  grateful  beyond 
words  for  the  welcome  aid  of  his  brilliant  and  destructive 
oratory.  Mr.  Napier  appears  to  have  been  inconsiderately 
importunate  for  articles,  and  Macaulay,  though  protesting 
that  he  must  really  now  devote  himself  to  his  History, 
with  amiable  weakness  ends  by  giving  in  and  writing. 
But  the  sacrifice  was  really  too  great,  and  he  ought  to 


IT.]  AT  LENGTH  RESOLUTE.  127 

have  seen  that  it  was.  He  did  at  last,  and,  resolutely  put- 
ting his  foot  down,  declared  that  he  would  write  no  more 
for  the  Review  till  he  had  brought  out  two  volumes  of  hia 
book.  He  wrote  to  Napier : 

"  I  hope  that  you  will  make  your  arrangements  for  some  three  or 
four  numbers  without  counting  on  me.  I  find  it  absolutely  necessary 
to  concentrate  my  attention  on  my  historical  work.  You  cannot 
conceive  how  difficult  I  find  it  to  do  two  things  at  a  time.  Men  are 
differently  made.  Southey  used  to  work  regularly  two  hours  a  day  on 
the  History  of  Brazil;  then  an  hour  for  the  Quarterly  Review  ;  then 
an  hour  on  the  Life  of  Wesley  ;  then  two  hours  on  the  Peninsular 
War  ;  then  an  hour  on  the  Book  of  the  Church.  I  cannot  do  so.  I  get 
into  the  stream  of  my  narrative,  and  am  going  along  as  smoothly  and 
quickly  as  possible.  Then  comes  the  necessity  of  writing  for  the 
Review.  I  lay  my  History  aside;  and  when  after  some  weeks  I  re- 
sume it,  I  have  the  greatest  difficulty  in  recovering  the  interrupted 
train  of  thought.  But  for  the  Review,  1  should  already  have  brought 
out  two  volumes  at  least.  I  must  really  make  a  resolute  effort,  or  my 
plan  will  end  as  our  poor  friend  Mackintosh's  ended." 

This  self-reproach  and  this  comparison  with  Mackintosh 
are  constantly  flowing  from  his  pen : 

"  Another  paper  from  me  is  at  present  out  of  the  question.  One 
in  half  a  year  is  the  utmost  of  which  I  can  hold  out  any  hopes.  I 
ought  to  give  my  whole  leisure  to  my  History ;  and  fear  that  if  I 
suffer  myself  to  be  diverted  from  that  design,  as  I  have  done,  I  shall 
be  like  poor  Mackintosh,  leave  behind  me  the  character  of  a  man 
who  would  have  done  something,  if  he  had  concentrated  his  powers 
instead  of  frittering  them  away.  ...  I  must  not  go  on  dawdling  and 
reproaching  myself  all  my  life." 

This  sacrifice  to  editorial  importunity  was  the  more 
regrettable,  as  articles,  written  under  this  pressure,  with 
one  exception,  have  added  little  to  Macaulay's  fame.  The 
fact  is  in  no  wise  surprising.  Task-work  of  this  kind,  even 
though  undertaken  at  the  bidding  of  friendship,  is  apt  to 


128  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

betray  a  want  both  of  maturity  and  spontaneous  inspira- 
tion. Saving  the  article  on  Chatham — a  subject  which  lay 
in  the  course  of  his  studies,  and  with  which  he  took  great 
pains,  writing  it  over  three  times  —  Macaulay's  contribu- 
tions to  the  Edinburgh  at  this  period  have  largely  the  char- 
acteristics of  what  are  vulgarly  called  "  pot-boilers,"  though 
in  his  case  they  were  written  to  keep,  not  his  own,  but  an- 
other man's  pot  boiling.  The  articles  on  Madame  D'Ar- 
blay's  Memoirs  and  on  Frederick  the  Great  are  thin,  crude, 
perfunctory,  and  valueless,  except  as  first-rate  padding  for 
a  periodical  review.  In  the  latter  he  cannot  even  spell 
the  name  of  the  Principality  of  Frederick's  favourite  sister 
Wilhelmina  correctly — always  writing  Bareuth  instead  of 
Baireuth ;  it  is  but  a  small  error,  but  it  indicates  haste,  as 
he  was  usually  careful  in  the  orthography  of  proper  names. 
But  there  are  worse  faults  than  this.  When  off  his  guard, 
especially  when  contemptuous  or  angry,  Macaulay  easily 
lapsed  into  an  uncurbed  vehemence  of  language  which 
bordered  on  vulgarity : 

"  Frederick  by  no  means  relinquished  his  hereditary  privilege  of 
kicking  and  cudgelling.  His  practice,  however,  as  to  that  matter, 
differed  in  some  important  respects  from  his  father's.  To  Frederick 
William  the  mere  circumstance  that  any  person  whatever,  men,  wom- 
en, or  children,  Prussians  or  foreigners,  were  within  reach  of  his  toes 
or  his  cane,  appeared  to  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  proceeding  to  bela- 
bour them.  Frederick  required  provocation,  as  well  as  vicinity." 

Again  :  "  The  resistance  opposed  to  him  by  the  tribu- 
nals inflamed  him  to  fury.  He  reviled  the  Chancellor; 
he  kicked  the  shins  of  his  judges."  Of  Voltaire's  skill  in 
flattery  he  remarks:  "And  it  was  only  from  his  hand  that 
so  much  sugar  could  be  swallowed  without  making  the 
swallower  sick."  In  the  article  on  Madame  D'Arblay  her 
German  colleague,  Madame  Schwellenberg,  is  described 


iv.]  HIS  SIMPLICITY.  129 

with  a  coarseness  of  tone  worthy  of  the  original :  "  a  hate- 
ful old  toad-eater,  as  illiterate  as  a  chamber-maid,  and  proud 
as  a  whole  German  chapter."  Madame  Schwellenberg 
"  raved  like  a  maniac  in  the  incurable  ward  of  Bedlam." 
Madame  Schwellenberg  "  raged  like  a  wild-cat." 

Macaulay  never  fully  appreciated  the  force  of  modera- 
tion, the  impressiveness  of  calm  under-statement,  the  pene- 
trating power  of  irony.  His  nature  was  essentially  sim- 
ple and  not  complex ;  when  a  strong  feeling  arose  in  his 
mind  it  came  forth  at  once  naked  and  unashamed ;  it  met 
with  no  opposition  from  other  feelings  capable  of  modify- 
ing or  restraining  it.  A  great  deal  of  his  clearness  springs 
from  this  single,  uninvolved  character  of  his  emotions, 
which  never  blend  in  rich,  polyphonic  chords,  filling  the 
ear  of  the  mind.  Somewhat  of  this  simplicity  appears  to 
have  been  reflected  in  his  countenance.  Carlyle,  who  was 
practically  acquainted  with  a  very  different  internal  econo- 
my, once  observed  Macaulay's  face  in  repose,  as  he  was 
turning  over  the  pages  of  a  book.  "  I  noticed,"  he  said, 
"the  homely  Norse  features  that  you  find  everywhere  in 
the  Western  Isles,  and  I  thought  to  myself,  '  Well,  any 
one  can  see  that  you  are  an  honest,  good  sort  of  fellow, 
made  out  of  oatmeal !'  "  He  resembled  the  straight-split- 
ting pine  rather  than  the  gnarled  oak.  To  liken  a  woman 
on  account  of  her  ill-temper  to  a  raving  maniac  and  a  wild- 
cat excited  in  him  no  qualms ;  the  epithets  expressed  his 
feelings,  but  no  counter  wave  of  fastidious  taste  surged 
up,  compelling  a  recast  of  the  whole  expression. 

It  is  some  confirmation  of  a  view  already  advanced  in 
these  pages  that  Macaulay's  natural  aptitude  was  rather 
oratorical  than  literary,  that  at  this  very  time  he  was 
making  some  of  his  best  speeches  in  Parliament.  The 
fine  literary  sense  of  nuance,  the  scrupulous  choice  of  epi- 


130  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

thet,  the  delicacy  which  it  alarmed  by  loud  tones  and 
colours — -in  short,  the  qualities  most  rare  and  precious  in 
a  writer — are  out  of  place  in  oratory,  which  is  never  more 
effective  than  when  inspired  by  manly  and  massive  emo- 
tion, enforcing  broad  and  simple  conclusions.  It  is  im- 
possible to  read  Macaulay's  speeches  without  feeling  that 
in  delivering  them  he  was  wielding  an  instrument  of 
which  he  was  absolutely  the  master.  The  luminous  order 
and  logical  sequence  of  the  parts  are  only  surpassed  by 
the  lofty  unity  and  coherence  of  the  whole.  High,  states- 
man-like views  are  unfolded  in  language  that  is  at  once 
terse,  chaste,  and  familiar,  never  fine-drawn  or  over-subtle, 
but  plain,  direct,  and  forcible,  exactly  suited  to  an  au- 
dience of  practical  men.  Above  all,  the  noble  and  gen- 
erous sentiment,  which  burns  and  glows  through  every 
sentence,  melts  the  whole  mass  of  argument,  illustration, 
and  invective  into  a  torrent  of  majestic  oratory,  which  is 
as  far  above  the  eloquence  of  rhetoric  as  high  poetry  is 
above  the  mere  rhetoric  of  verse.  It  is  the  more  neces- 
sary to  dwell  on  this  point  with  some  emphasis,  as  an  un- 
just and  wholly  unfounded  impression  seems  to  be  gam- 
ing ground  that  Macaulay  was  a  mere  closet  orator,  who 
delivered  carefully  prepared  essays  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, brilliant,  perhaps,  but  unpractical  rhetorical  exer- 
cises that  smelt  strongly  of  the  lamp.  The  truth  is  that 
Macaulay  is  never  less  rhetorical,  in  the  bad  sense  of  the 
word,  than  in  his  speeches.  He  put  on  no  gloves,  he 
took  in  hand  no  buttoned  foil,  when  on  well-chosen  oc- 
casions he  came  down  to  the  House  to  make  a  speech. 
Blows  straight  from  the  shoulder;  a  short  and  sharp 
Roman  sword,  wielded  with  equal  skill  and  vigour,  are 
rather  the  images  suggested  by  his  performance  in  these 
conflicts.  Yet  a  hundred  persons  know  his  essays  for 


ir.]  SPEECHES.  131 

one  who  is  acquainted  with  his  speeches.  During  the 
period  comprised  in  this  chapter — from  1841  to  1848 — 
he  made  twelve  speeches ;  and  if  the  world's  judgments 
were  dictated  by  reason  and  insight  instead  of  fashion 
and  hearsay,  no  equal  portion  of  Macaulay's  works  would 
be  deemed  so  valuable.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
as  an  orator  he  moves  in  a  higher  intellectual  plane  than 
he  does  as  a  writer.  As  a  writer  he  rather  avoids  the 
discussion  of  principles,  and  is  not  always  happy  when  he 
does  engage  in  it.  In  his  speeches  we  find  him  nearly 
without  exception  laying  down  broad,  luminous  principles, 
based  upon  reason,  and  those  boundless  stores  of  histori- 
cal illustration,  from  which  he  argues  with  equal  brevity 
and  force.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  his  treatment  of 
the  same  subject  in  an  essay  and  a  speech.  His  speech 
on  the  Maynooth  grant  and  his  essay  on  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Church  and  State  deal  with  practically  the  same  question, 
and  few  persons  would  hesitate  to  give  the  preference  to 
the  speech. 

'It  is  difficult  to  give  really  representative  extracts  from 
Macaulay's  speeches,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  so  or- 
ganically constructed  that  the  proverbial  inadequacy  of 
the  brick  to  represent  the  building  applies  to  them  in  an 
unusual  degree.  Many  of  the  speeches  also  refer  to  top- 
ics and  party  politics  which  are  rapidly  passing  into  ob- 
livion. One  subject,  to  our  sorrow,  retains  a  perennial  in- 
terest :  Macaulay's  speeches  on  Ireland  would  alone '  suf- 
fice to  place  him  in  the  rank  of  high,  far-seeing  statesmen. 
The  lapse  of  well-nigh  forty  years  has  not  aged  this  mel- 
ancholy retrospect.  He  is  speaking  of  Pitt's  intended 
legislation  at  the  time  of  the  Union : 

"Unhappily,  of  all  his  projects  for  the  benefit  of  Ireland,  the 
Union  alone  was  carried  into  effect ;  and,  therefore,  that  Union  was 


132  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

a  Union  only  in  name.  The  Irish  found  that  they  had  parted  with  at 
least  the  name  and  show  of  independence ;  and  that  for  this  sacrifice 
of  national  pride  they  were  to  receive  no  compensation.  The  Union, 
which  ought  to  have  been  associated  in  their  minds  with  freedom  and 
justice,  was  associated  only  with  disappointed  hopes  and  forfeited 
pledges.  Yet  it  was  not  even  then  too  late.  It  was  not  too  late  in 
1813.  It  was  not  too  late  in  1821.  It  was  not  too  late  in  1825. 
Yes,  if  even  in  1825  some  men  who  were  then,  as  they  are  now,  high 
in  the  service  of  the  Crown  could  have  made  up  their  minds  to  do 
what  they  were  forced  to  do  four  years  later,  that  great  work  of  rec- 
onciliation which  Mr.  Pitt  had  meditated  might  have  been  accom- 
plished. The  machinery  of  agitation  was  not  yet  fully  organized. 
The  Government  was  under  no  strong  pressure ;  and  therefore  con- 
cession might  still  have  been  received  with  thankfulness.  That  op- 
portunity was  suffered  to  escape,  and  it  never  returned. 

uln  1829,  at  length,  concessions  were  made,  were  made  largely, 
were  made  without  the  conditions  which  Mr.  Pitt  would  undoubtedly 
have  demanded,  and  to  which,  if  demanded  by  Mr.  Pitt,  the  whole 
body  of  Roman  Catholics  would  have  eagerly  assented.  But  those 
concessions  were  made  reluctantly,  made  ungraciously,  made  under 
duress,  made  from  mere  dread  of  civil  war.  How,  then,  was  it  pos- 
sible that  they  should  produce  contentment  and  repose?  What 
could  be  the  effect  of  that  sudden  and  profuse  liberality  following 
that  long  and  obstinate  resistance  to  the  most  reasonable  demands, 
except  to  teach  the  Irishman  that  he  could  obtain  redress  only  by 
turbulence?  Could  he  forget  that  he  had  been,  during  eight-and- 
twenty  years,  supplicating  Parliament  for  justice,  urging  those  unan- 
swerable arguments  which  prove  that  the  rights  of  conscience  ought 
to  be  held  sacred,  claiming  the  performance  of  promises  made  by  min- 
isters and  princes,  and  that  he  had  supplicated,  argued,  claimed  the 
performance  of  promises  in  vain?  Could  he  forget  that  two  gen- 
erations of  the  most  profound  thinkers,  the  most  brilliant  wits,  the 
most  eloquent  orators,  had  written  and  spoken  for  him  in  vain? 
Could  he  forget  that  the  greatest  statesmen  who  took  his  part  had 
paid  dear  for  their  generosity  ?  Mr.  Pitt  had  endeavored  to  redeem 
his  pledge,  and  he  was  driven  from  office.  Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Gren- 
vilte  endeavored  to  do  but  a  small  part  of  what  Mr.  Pitt  thought 
right  and  expedient,  and  they  were  driven  from  office.  Mr.  Canning 
took  the  same  side,  and  his  reward  was  to  be  worried  to  death  by 


IT.]  ATTACK  ON  PEEL.  133 

the  party  of  which  he  was  the  brightest  ornament.  At  length,  when 
he  was  gone,  the  Roman  Catholics  began  to  look,  not  to  the  cabinets 
and  parliaments,  but  to  themselves.  They  displayed  a  formidable 
array  of  physical  force,  and  yet  kept  within,  just  within,  the  limits  of 
the  law.  The  consequence  was  that,  in  two  years,  more  than  any 
prudent  friend  had  ventured  to  demand  for  them  was  granted  to 
them  by  their  enemies.  Yes ;  within  two  years  after  Mr.  Canning 
had  been  laid  in  the  transept  near  us,  all  that  he  would  have  done — 
aud  more  than  he  could  have  done — was  done  by  his  persecutors. 
How  was  it  possible  that  the  whole  Roman  Catholic  population  of 
Ireland  should  not  take  up  the  notion  that,  from  England,  or  at  least 
from  the  party  which  then  governed  and  which  now  governs  Eng- 
land, nothing  is  to  be  got  by  reason,  by  entreaty,  by  patient  endur- 
ance, but  everything  by  intimidation?  That  tardy  repentance  de- 
served no  gratitude,  and  obtained  none.  The  whole  machinery  of 
agitation  was  complete,  and  in  perfect  order.  The  leaders  had  tasted 
the  pleasures  of  popularity;  the  multitude  had  tasted  the  pleasures 
of  excitement.  Both  the  demagogue  and  his  audience  felt  a  craving 
for  the  daily  stimulant.  Grievances  enough  remained,  God  knows, 
to  serve  as  pretexts  for  agitation ;  and  the  whole  conduct  of  the  Gov- 
ernment had  led  the  sufferers  to  believe  that  by  agitation  alone  could 
any  grievance  be  removed."1 

As  a  specimen  of  Macaulay's  power  of  invective,  his 
attack  on  Sir  Robert  Peel  ma}7  be  quoted.  After  Peel's 
death,  when  revising  his  speeches  for  publication,  he  re- 
called in  his  diary  the  impression  he  had  made.  "How 
white  poor  Peel  looked  while  I  was  speaking !  I  remem- 
ber the  effect  of  the  words,  '  There  you  sit,'  etc." 

"  There  is  too  much  ground  for  the  reproaches  of  those  who,  hav- 
ing,  in  spite  of  a  bitter  experience,  a  second  time  trusted  the  Right 
Honourable  Baronet,  now  find  themselves  a  second  time  deluded.  It 
has  been  too  much  his  practice,  when  in  Opposition,  to  make  use  of 
passions  with  which  he  has  not  the  slightest  sympathy,  and  of  preju- 
dices which  he  regards  with  a  profound  contempt.  As  soon  as  he  is 

1  On  the  State  of  Ireland,  February,  1844. 


134  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

in  power  a  change  takes  place.  The  instruments  which  have  done 
his  work  are  flung  aside.  The  ladder  by  which  he  has  climbed  is 
kicked  down.  .  .  .  Can  we  wonder  that  the  eager,  honest,  hot-headed 
Protestants,  who  raised  you  to  power  in  the  confident  hope  that  you 
would  curtail  the  privileges  of  the  Koman  Catholics,  should  stare 
and  grumble  when  you  propose  to  give  public  money  to  the  Roman 
Catholics  ?  Can  we  wonder  that  the  people  out-of-doors  should  be 
exasperated  by  seeing  the  very  men  who,  when  we  were  in  office, 
voted  against  the  old  grant  of  Maynooth,  now  pushed  and  pulled  into 
the  House  by  your  whippers-in  to  vote  for  an  increased  grant  ?  The 
natural  consequences  follow.  All  those  fierce  spirits  whom  you  hal- 
looed on  to  harass  us  now  turn  round  and  begin  to  worry  you.  The 
Orangeman  raises  his  war-whoop ;  Exeter  Hall  sets  up  its  bray ;  Mr. 
Macneill  shudders  to  see  more  costly  cheer  than  ever  provided  for 
the  Priest  of  Baal  at  the  table  of  the  Queen ;  and  the  Protestant 
operatives  of  Dublin  call  for  impeachments  in  exceedingly  bad  Eng- 
lish. But  what  did  you  expect  ?  Did  you  think  when,  to  serve  your 
turn,  you  called  the  devil  up  that  it  was  as  easy  to  lay  him  as  to 
raise  him  ?  Did  you  think  when  you  went  on,  session  after  session, 
thwarting  and  reviling  those  whom  you  knew  to  be  hi  the  right,  and 
flattering  all  the  worst  passions  of  those  whom  you  knew  to  be  in  the 
wrong,  that  the  day  of  reckoning  would  never  come  ?  It  has  come. 
There  you  sit,  doing  penance  for  the  disingenuousness  of  years.  If 
it  be  not  so,  stand  up  manfully  and  clear  your  fame  before  the  House 
and  country.  Show  us  that  some  steady  policy  has  guided  your  con- 
duct with  respect  to  Irish  affairs.  Show  us  how,  if  you  are  honest 
in  1845,  you  can  have  been  honest  in  1841.  Explain  to  us  why,  af- 
ter having  goaded  Ireland  to  madness  for  the  purpose  of  ingratiating 
yourselves  with  the  English,  you  are  now  setting  England  on  fire  for 
the  purpose  of  ingratiating  yourselves  with  the  Irish.  Give  us  some 
reason  which  shall  prove  that  the  policy  you  are  following,  as  Minis- 
ters, is  entitled  to  support,  and  which  shall  not  equally  prove  you  to 
have  been  the  most  factious  and  unprincipled  Opposition  that  ever 
this  country  saw."1 

But  the  time  was  approaching  when  these  brilliant  pas- 
sages of  arms  needed  to  be  brought  to  a  close.     Through 

1  Speech  on  Maynooth,  April,  1845. 


IV.]  THE  "HISTORY."  135 

manifold  impediments  and  hinderances,  Macaulay  had 
slowly  proceeded  with  his  History  of  England  ;  and  he 
felt  what  most  workers  have  experienced,  that  the  attrac- 
tive power  of  his  work  increased  with  its  growth.  In  1 844 
he  gave  up  writing  for  the  Edinburgh  Review,  a  wise, 
though  somewhat  late,  resolution,  which  he  would  have 
done  well  to  make  earlier.  In  1847  he  lost  his  seat  for 
Edinburgh,  and  thus  was  severed  the  last  tie  which  con- 
nected him  with  active  politics.  He  then  settled  down 
with  steady  purpose  to  finish  his  task;  and  on  November 
29,  1848,  the  work  was  given  to  the  world.  Not  since 
the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall,  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  before,  has  any 
historical  work  been  received  with  such  universal  accla- 
mation. The  first  edition  of  three  thousand  copies  was 
exhausted  in  ten  days ;  and  in  less  than  four  months  thir- 
teen thousand  copies  were  sold.  The  way  in  which  Ma- 
caulay was  affected  by  this  overwhelming  success  showed 
that  he  was  wholly  free  from  any  taint  of  pride  or  arro- 
gance. "  I  am  half  afraid,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  of 
this  strange  prosperity.  ...  I  feel  extremely  anxious  about 
the  second  part.  Can  it  possibly  come  up  to  the  first  ?" 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  work  in  which,  for  many 
years,  he  had  "  garnered  up  "  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    "HISTORY." 

*'  HISTORY,"  says  Macaulay,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
Essay  on  ITallam,  "  at  least  in  its  state  of  ideal  perfection, 
is  a  compound  of  poetry  and  philosophy.  It  impresses 
general  truths  on  the  mind,  by  a  vivid  representation  of 
particular  characters  and  incidents.  But  in  fact  the  two 
hostile  elements  of  which  it  consists  have  never  been 
known  to  form  a  perfect  amalgamation  ;  and  at  length,  in 
our  own  time,  they  have  been  completely  and  professedly 
separated.  Good  histories,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word, 
we  have  not.  But  we  have  good  historical  romances  and 
good  historical  essays." 

The  reconciliation  of  these  two  hostile  elements  of  his- 
tory was  the  dream  of  Macaulay's  early  ambition  and  the 
serious  occupation  of  his  later  years.  It  will  be  worth 
while  to  briefly  consider  the  problem  itself  before  we  con- 
template the  success  and  skill  which  he  brought  to  bear 
on  its  solution. 

The  two  sides  or  the  two  elements  of  history — the  ele- 
ment of  fact,  and  the  element  of  art,  which  fashions  the 
fact  into  an  attractive  form — have  always  been  too  obvious 
to  be  overlooked.  In  the  earliest  form  of  history — poetry 
and  legend — the  element  of  fact  is  reduced  to  a  minimum, 
and  almost  completely  overpowered  by  the  element  of  art, 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  189 

yielding  to  the  new  movement,  he  resolved  to  ignore  it, 
and  even  by  his  practice  to  oppose  it.  Though  the  two 
elements  of  history  had  never  yet  been  amalgamated  with 
success,  and  were  about,  perhaps,  to  be  severed  forever,  he 
thought  he  could  unite  them  as  they  had  never  been  united 
before.  He  took,  as  we  have  seen  (chap,  ii.),  no  notice  of 
the  new  history,  showed  no  curiosity  in  what  was  being 
done  in  that  direction,  and  nursing  his  own  thoughts  in 
almost  complete  isolation  amid  contemporary  historians, 
conceived  and  matured  his  own  plan  of  how  history  should 
be  written.  He  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  that 
plan  was.  It  was  that  history  should  be  a  true  novel,  ca- 
pable of  "  interesting  the  affections,  and  presenting  pictures 
to  the  imagination.  ...  It  should  invest  with  the  reality 
of  human  flesh  and  blood  beimgs  whom  we  are  too  much 
inclined  to  consider  as  personified  qualities  in  an  allegory ; 
call  up  our  ancestors  before  us  with  all  their  peculiarities 
of  language,  manners,  and  garb ;  show  us  over  their  houses, 
seat  us  at  their  tables,  rummage  their  old-fashioned  ward- 
robes, explain  the  uses  of  their  ponderous  furniture."  And 
that  this  plan,  made  in  youth,  was  carried  out  in  after-life 
with  rare  success  and  felicity,  his  History  is  here  to  show. 
Thus,  just  at  the  time  when  history  was  taking  a  more 
scientific  and  impersonal  character,  Macaulay  was  preparing 
to  make  it  more  concrete  and  individual,  to  invest  it  with 
more  flesh  and  blood,  and  make  it  more  capable  of  stirring 
the  affections.  He  was  not  a  progressist,  or  even  a  con- 
servative, but  a  reactionary  in  his  notions  of  history.  But 
originality  may  be  shown  (sometimes  is  more  shown)  in 
going  back  as  well  as  in  going  forward.  Those  are  by  no 
means  the  strongest  minds  which  most  readily  yield  to  the 
prevailing  fashion  of  their  age.  Macaulay  showed  a  lofty 
self-confidence  and  sense  of  power  when  he  resolved  to  at- 
K  7 


138  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

wanted  who  could  penetrate  to  greater  depths.  In  short, 
the  past  began  to  be  scientifically  examined,  not  for  ar- 
tistic purposes,  in  order  to  compose  graceful  narratives — 
not  for  political  purposes,  in  order  to  find  materials  for 
party  warfare — not  for  theoretical  purposes,  in  order  to 
construct  specious  but  ephemeral  philosophies  of  history ; 
but  simply  for  accurate  and  verifiable  knowledge.  It  was 
a  repetition  of  the  process  through  which  previous  sciences 
had  passed  from  the  pursuit  of  chimerical  to  real  and  valid 
aims — the  study  of  the  heavens  from  astrology  to  astron- 
omy, the  study  of  the  constituents  of  bodies  from  alchem- 
istry  to  chemistry,  the  study  of  medicine  from  the  search 
for  the  elixir  vitce  to  serious  therapeutics.  The  result  was 
to  depress,  and  almost  degrade,  the  artistic  element  in  his- 
tory. When  the  magnitude  and  severity  of  the  task  before 
men  was  at  last  fully  perceived — when  it  was  seen  that  we 
have  to  study  the  historical  record  as  we  study  the  geolog- 
ical record  —  that  while  both  are  imperfect,  full  of  gaps 
which  may  never  be  filled  up,  yet  enough  remains  to  merit 
and  demand  the  most  thorough  examination,  classification, 
and  orderly  statement  of  the  phenomena  we  have — it  was 
felt  there  was  something  trivial  and  unworthy  of  the  grav- 
ity of  science  to  think  of  tricking  out  in  the  flowers  of 
rhetoric  the  hardly-won  acquisitions  of  laborious  research. 
Poetical  science  and  scientific  poetry  are  equally  repellent 
to  the  genuine  lovers  of  both.  Simple,  unornate  statement 
of  the  results  obtained  is  the  only  style  of  treatment  con- 
sonant with  the  dignity  of  genuine  inquiry. 

Macaulay  passed  his  youth  and  oarly  manhood,  during 
the  period  when  this  great  change  was  taking  place,  in 
historical  studies,  and  producing  its  first  fruits.  But  it 
did  not  find  favour  in  his  eyes.  Very  much  the  contra- 
ry :  it  filled  him  with  something  like  disgust.  Instead  of 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  139 

yielding  to  the  new  movement,  he  resolved  to  ignore  it, 
and  even  by  his  practice  to  oppose  it.  Though  the  two 
elements  of  history  had  never  yet  been  amalgamated  with 
success,  and  were  about,  perhaps,  to  be  severed  forever,  he 
thought  he  could  unite  them  as  they  had  never  been  united 
before.  He  took,  as  we  have  seen  (chap,  ii.),  no  notice  of 
the  new  history,  showed  no  curiosity  in  what  was  being 
done  in  that  direction,  and  nursing  his  own  thoughts  in 
almost  complete  isolation  amid  contemporary  historians, 
conceived  and  matured  his  own  plan  of  how  history  should 
be  written.  He  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  that 
plan  was.  It  was  that  history  should  be  a  true  novel,  ca- 
pable of  "  interesting  the  affections,  and  presenting  pictures 
to  the  imagination.  ...  It  should  invest  with  the  reality 
of  human  flesh  and  blood  bei»gs  whom  we  are  too  much 
inclined  to  consider  as  personified  qualities  in  an  allegory ; 
call  up  our  ancestors  before  us  with  all  their  peculiarities 
of  language,  manners,  and  garb ;  show  us  over  their  houses, 
seat  us  at  their  tables,  rummage  their  old-fashioned  ward- 
robes, explain  the  uses  of  their  ponderous  furniture."  And 
that  this  plan,  made  in  youth,  was  carried  out  in  after-life 
with  rare  success  and  felicity,  his  History  is  here  to 'show. 
Thus,  just  at  the  time  when  history  was  taking  a  more 
scientific  and  impersonal  character,  Macaulay  was  preparing 
to  make  it  more  concrete  and  individual,  to  invest  it  with 
more  flesh  and  blood,  and  make  it  more  capable  of  stirring 
the  affections.  He  was  not  a  progressist,  or  even  a  con- 
servative, but  a  reactionary  in  his  notions  of  history.  But 
originality  may  be  shown  (sometimes  is  more  shown)  in 
going  back  as  well  as  in  going  forward.  Those  are  by  no 
means  the  strongest  minds  which  most  readily  yield  to  the 
prevailing  fashion  of  their  age.  Macaulay  showed  a  lofty 
self-confidence  and  sense  of  power  when  he  resolved  to  at- 
K  7 


140  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

tempt  a  task  which  he  owned  had  never  been  accomplished 
before — nay,  to  confer  on  artistic  history  a  rank  and  dig- 
nity which  it  never  had  previously  enjoyed,  at  a  time  when 
a  formidable  rival  was  threatening  to  depress,  or  even  to 
depose  it  altogether. 

His  plan  led,  or  rather  forced  him,  to  work  on  a  scale 
of  unprecedented  magnitude,  which,  even  in  spite  of  his 
example,  has  never  been  quite  equalled.  To  produce  the 
effects  he  required,  extreme  minuteness  of  detail  was  in- 
dispensable; characters  must  be  painted  life-size,  events 
related  with  extraordinary  fulness,  and  the  history  of  a 
nation  treated  in  a  style  proper  to  memoirs,  or  even  to 
romances.  The  human  interest  had  to  be  sustained  by 
biographical  anecdotes,  and  a  vigilant  liveliness  of  narra- 
tive which  simulated  the  novel  of  adventure.  The  politi- 
cal interest  was  to  be  kept  up  by  similar  handling  of  party 
debates,  party  struggles,  by  one  who  knew  by  experience 
every  inch  of  the  ground.  But  the  true  historical  and 
sociological  interest  necessarily  retreated  into  a  secondary 
rank.  An  ordnance  map  cannot  serve  the  purpose  of  a 
hand  atlas.  On  the  scale  of  an  inch  to  a  mile  we  may 
trace  the  roads  and  boundaries  of  our  parish ;  but  we  can- 
not combine  with  such  minuteness  a  synthetic  view  of  the 
whole  island  and  its  relation  to  European  geography.  It 
was  on  the  scale  of  an  ordnance  map  that  Macaulay  wrote 
his  History  of  England.  Such  a  plan  necessarily  excluded 
as  much  on  the  one  hand  as  it  admitted  on  the  other.  Our 
view  of  the  past  is  vitiated  and  wrong,  unless  a  certain  pro- 
portion presides  over  our  conception  of  it.  The  most  val- 
uable quality  of  history  is  to  show  the  process  of  social 
growth ;  and  the  longer  the  period  over  which  this  process 
is  observed,  the  more  instructive  is  the  result.  A  vivid 
perception  of  a  short  period,  with  imperfect  grasp  of  what 


v.]  THE  "HISTORY."  141 

preceded  and  followed  it,  is  rather  misleading  than  instruc- 
tive. It  leads  to  a  confusion  of  the  relative  importance  of 
the  part  as  compared  to  the  whole. 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  low  -  minded  objection  to  Macaulay's 
conception  of  history,  to  remark  that  its  application  to 
lengthy  periods  is  a  physical  impossibility.  The  five  vol- 
umes we  have  of  his  History  comprise  a  space  of  some 
fifteen  years.  It  was  his  original  scheme  to  bring  his 
narrative  down  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  George  IV.,  in 
round  numbers  a  period  of  a  century  and  a  half.  If, 
therefore,  his  plan  had  been  carried  out  on  its  present 
scale,  it  would  have  needed  fifty  volumes,  if  not  more,  as 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  more  recent  events  would 
have  permitted  greater  compression.  But  further,  he 
wrote,  at  an  average,  a  volume  in  three  years ;  therefore 
his  whole  task  would  have  taken  him  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  to  accomplish — that  is  to  say,  it  would  have 
taken  as  long  to  record  the  events  as  the  events  took 
to  happen.  This  is  almost  a  practical  refutation  of  the 
method  he  adopted.  And  yet  such  an  absurd  result  could 
not,  on  his  principles,  be  avoided.  If  history  is  to  be 
written  in  such  minute  detail  that  it  shall  rival  the  novel 
in  unbroken  sustention  of  the  personal  interest  attaching 
to  the  characters,  unexampled  bulk  must  ensue.  Macau- 
lay  had  no  intention  of  being  so  prolix.  He  expected  to 
achieve  the  first  portion  of  his  plan  (down  to  the  com- 
mencement of  Walpole's  administration),  a  matter  of  thir- 
ty-five years,  in  five  volumes ;  and,  as  it  turned  out,  five 
volumes  only  carried  him  over  fifteen  years.  But  he  could 
not  afford  to  reduce  his  scale  without  sacrificing  his  con- 
ception of  how  history  should  be  written. 

What  was  the  new  and  original  element  in  Macaulay's 
treatment  of  history  ?  The  unanimous  verdict  of  his  con- 


142  MACAtJLAY. 

temporaries  was  to  the  effect  that  he  had  treated  history 
in  a  novel  way.  He  was  himself  satisfied  that  he  had  im« 
proved  on  his  predecessors.  "  There  is  merit,  no  doubt," 
he  says,  in  his  diary,  "  in  Hume,  Robertson,  Voltaire,  and 
Gibbon.  Yet  it  is  not  the  thing.  I  have  a  conception  of 
history  more  just,  I  am  confident,  than  theirs."  Self-con- 
ceit was  no  vice  of  Macaulay's ;  and  as  on  this  point  of 
his  originality  he  persuaded  all  the  reading  world  of  his 
time  to  adopt  his  opinion,  our  business  is  to  find  out  in 
what  his  originality  consisted.  What  it  amounts  to,  or 
may  be  intrinsically  worth,  will  be  considered  afterwards. 

If  we  take  to  pieces  one  of  his  massive  chapters  with  a 
view  to  examine  his  method,  we  shall  find  that  his  self- 
confidence  was  not  without  foundation.  Historical  narra- 
tive in  his  hands  is  something  vastly  more  complex  and 
involved  than  it  ever  was  before.  Indeed,  "  narrative  "  is 
a  weak  and  improper  word  to  express  the  highly  organized 
structure  of  his  composition.  Beneath  the  smooth  and 
polished  surface  layer  under  layer  may  be  seen  of  subordi- 
nate narratives,  crossing  and  interlacing  each  other  like  the 
parts  in  the  score  of  an  oratorio.  And  this  complexity 
results  not  in  confusion,  but  in  the  most  admirable  clear- 
ness and  unity  of  effect.  His  pages  are  not  only  pictorial, 
they  are  dramatic.  Scene  is  made  to  follow  scene  with 
the  skill  of  an  accomplished  playwright ;  and  each  has  been 
planned  and  fashioned  with  a  view  to  its  thoughtfully  pre- 
pared place  in  the  whole  piece.  The  interest  of  the  story 
as  a  story  is  kept  up  with  a  profound  and  unsuspected  art. 
The  thread  of  the  narrative  is  never  dropped.  When  tran- 
sitions occur — and  no  writer  passes  from  one  part  of  his 
subject  to  another  with  more  boldness  and  freedom — they 
are  managed  with  such  skill  and  ease  that  the  reader  is 
unaware  of  them.  A  turn  of  the  road  has  brought  us  in 


v/|  THE  "HISTORY."  143 

view  of  a  new  prospect;  but  we  are  not  conscious  for  a 
moment  of  having  left  the  road.  The  change  seemg  the 
moat  natural  thing  in  the  world.  Let  the  more  remarka- 
ble chapters  be  axamined  from  this  point  of  view — say, 
simply  for  example,  the  Ninth,  the  Fifteenth,  and  the 
Twentieth — and  then  let  the  most  adverse  critic  be  asked 
to  name  an  instance  in  which  the  art  of  historical  compo- 
sition has  been  carried  to  a  higher  perfection. 

In  short,  Macaulay  was  a  master  of  the  great  art  of  misc 
en  scene  such  as  we  never  had  before.  It  is  rather  a  French 
than  an  English  quality,  and  has  been  duly  appreciated  in 
France.  Michelet  praises  Macaulay  in  warm  terms,  speaks 
of  him  as  "  illustre  et  regrette"  and  of  his  "  ires  beau 
recit"  If  he  must  be  considered  as  an  historical  artist 
who,  on  the  whole,  has  no  equal,  the  fact  is  not  entirely 
owing  to  the  superiority  of  his  genius,  unmistakable  as 
that  was.  No  historian  before  him  ever  regarded  his  task 
from  the  same  point  of  view,  or  aimed  with  such  calm  pa- 
tience and  labour  at  the  same  result ;  no  one,  in  short,  had 
ever  so  resolved  to  treat  real  events  on  the  lines  of  the 
novel  or  romance.  Many  writers  before  Macaulay  had 
done  their  best  to  be  graphic  and  picturesque,  but  none 
ever  saw  that  the  scattered  fragments  of  truth  could,  by 
incessant  toil  directed  by  an  artistic  eye,  be  worked  into  a 
mosaic,  which  for  colour,  freedom,  and  finish,  might  rival  the 
creations  of  fancy.  The  poets  who  have  written  history — 
Voltaire,  Southey,  Schiller,  Lamartine — are  not  comparable 
to  Macaulay  as  historical  artists.  They  did  not  see  that  facts 
recorded  in  old  books,  if  collected  and  sorted  with  unwea- 
ried pains,  might  be  made  to  produce  effects  nearly  as  strik- 
ing and  brilliant  as  the  facts  they  invented  for  the  works 
of  their  imagination.  Macaulay  saw  that  the  repertory  of 
truth  was  hardly  less  extensive  than  the  repertory  of  fio» 


144  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

tion.  If  the  biography  of  every  character  is  known  with 
the  utmost  detail,  it  will  be  possible,  when  each  presents 
himself  in  the  narrative,  to  introduce  him  with  a  fulness 
of  portraiture  such  as  the  novelist  applies  to  the  hero  and 
heroine  of  his  romance.  Exhaustive  knowledge  of  the 
preceding  history  of  every  place  named,  enables  the  writer 
to  sketch  the  castle,  the  town,  or  the  manor-house  with 
opportune  minuteness  and  local  colour.  Above  all,  a  nar- 
rative built  on  so  large  a  scale  that  it  allows  absolutely  un- 
limited copiousness  of  facts  and  illustration,  can  be  order- 
ed with  that  regard  to  the  interest  of  the  story  as  a  story 
that  the  universal  curiosity  in  human  adventure  is  awakened 
which  produces  the  constant  demand  for  works  of  fiction. 
Macaulay  saw  this,  and  carried  out  his  conception  with  a 
genius  and  patient  diligence  which,  when  our  attention  is 
fully  called  to  the  point,  fill  the  mind  with  something  like 
amazement.  It  is  probable  that  no  historian  ever  devoted 
such  care  to  the  grouping  of  his  materials.  He  replanned 
and  rewrote  whole  chapters  with  ungrudging  toil.  "  I 
worked  hard,"  he  says  in  his  diary, "  at  altering  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  first  three  chapters  of  the  third  volume. 
What  labour  it  is  to  make  a  tolerable  book;  and  how 
little  readers  know  how  much  trouble  the  ordering  of  part's 
has  cost  the  writer."  Again :  "  This  is  a  tough  chapter. 
To  make  the  narrative  flow  along  as  it  ought,  each  part 
naturally  springing  from  that  which  precedes,  is  not  easy. 
What  trouble  these  few  pages  have  cost  me.  The  great 
object  is  that  they  may  read  as  if  they  had  been  spoken 
off,  and  seem  to  flow  as  easily  as  table-talk."  Any  one 
who  knows  by  experience  how  difficult  it  is  to  conduct  a 
wide,  complex  narrative  with  perspicuity  and  ease,  and  then 
observes  the  success  with  which  Macaulay  has  conquered 
the  difficulty,  will  be  apt  to  fall  into  a  mute  admiration 


v.]  THE  "HISTORY."  146 

almost  too  deep  for  praise.  In  the  "  ordering  of  parts," 
which  cost  him  so  much  labour,  his  equal  will  not  easily 
be  found.  Each  side  of  the  story  is  brought  forward  in 
its  proper  time  and  place,  and  leaves  the  stage  when  it  has 
served  its  purpose,  that  of  advancing  by  one  step  the  main 
action.  Each  of  these  subordinate  stories,  marked  by  ex- 
quisite finish,  leads  up  to  a  minor  crisis  or  turn  in  events, 
where  it  joins  the  chief  narrative  with  a  certain  eclat  and 
surprise.  The  interweaving  of  these  well-nigh  endless 
threads,  the  clearness  with  which  each  is  kept  visible  and 
distinct,  and  yet  is  made  to  contribute  its  peculiar  effect 
and  colour  to  the  whole  texture,  constitute  one  of  the 
great  feats  in  literature. 

Imperfectly  as  a  notion  of  such  constant  and  pervading 
merit  can  be  conveyed  by  an  extract,  one  is  offered  here 
merely  as  an  example.  But  a  passage  from  Hume,  dealing 
with  the  same  events,  will  be  given  first.  An  interesting 
comparison — or,  rather,  contrast — between  the  styles  of  the 
earlier  and  later  writer  will  be  found  to  result.  The  sub- 
ject is  the  flight  of  the  Princess  Anne  at  the  crisis  of  her 
father's  fortunes.  Hume  says : 

"  But  Churchill  had  prepared  a  still  more  mortal  blow  for  his  dis- 
tressed benefactor.  His  lady  and  he  had  an  entire  ascendant  over 
the  family  of  Prince  George  of  Danemark ;  and  the  time  now  appear- 
ed seasonable  for  overwhelming  the  unhappy  King,  who  was  already 
staggering  with  the  violent  shocks  which  he  had  received.  Andover 
was  the  first  stage  of  James's  retreat  towards  London,  and  there  Prince 
George,  together  with  the  young  Duke  of  Ormond,  Sir  George  Huet, 
and  some  other  persons  of  distinction,  deserted  him  in  the  night-time, 
and  retired  to  the  Prince's  camp.  No  sooner  had  this  news  reached 
London  than  the  Princess  Anne,  pretending  fear  of  the  King's  dis- 
pleasure, withdrew  herself  in  company  with  the  Bishop  of  London 
and  Lady  Churchill.  She  fled  to  Nottingham,  where  the  Earl  of 
Dorset  received  her  with  great  respect,  and  the  gentry  of  the  country 
quickly  formed  a  troop  for  her  protection," 


146  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

This  is  Macaulay's  account : 

"  Prince  George  and  Ormond  were  invited  to  sup  with  the  King  at 
Andover.  The  meal  must  have  been  a  sad  one.  The  King  wag  over- 
whelmed by  his  misfortunes.  His  son-in-law  was  the  dullest  of  com- 
panions. '  I  have  tried  Prince  George  sober,'  said  Charles  the  Second, 
1  and  I  have  tried  him  drunk ;  and  drunk  or  sober,  there  is  nothing 
in  him.'  Ormond,  who  was  through  life  taciturn  and  bashful,  was 
not  likely  to  be  in  high  spirits  at  such  a  moment.  At  length  the  re- 
past terminated.  The  King  retired  to  rest.  Horses  were  in  waiting 
for  the  Prince  and  Ormond,  who,  as  soon  as  they  left  the  table,  mount- 
ed and  rode  off.  They  were  accompanied  by  the  Earl  of  Drumlanrig, 
eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Queensberry.  The  defection  of  this  young 
nobleman  was  no  insignificant  event ;  for  Queensberry  was  the  head 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopalians  of  Scotland,  a  class  compared  with 
whom  the  bitterest  English  Tories  might  be  called  Whiggish;  and 
Drumlanrig  himself  was  lieutenant- colonel  of  Dundee's  regiment  of 
horse,  a  band  more  detested  by  the  Whigs  than  even  Kirke's  lambs. 
This  fresh  calamity  was  announced  to  the  King  on  the  following 
morning.  He  was  less  disturbed  by  the  news  than  might  have  been 
expected.  The  shock  which  he  had  undergone  twenty-four  hours 
before  had  prepared  him  for  almost  any  disaster ;  and  it  was  impos- 
sible to  be  seriously  angry  with  Prince  George,  who  was  hardly  an 
accountable  being,  for  having  yielded  to  the  arts  of  such  a  tempter 
as  Churchill.  *  What !'  said  James, '  is  Est-il-possible  gone  too  ?  After 
all,  a  good  trooper  would  have  been  a  greater  loss. '  In  truth,  the  King's 
whole  anger  seems  at  this  time  to  have  been  concentrated,  and  not 
without  cause,  on  one  object.  He  set  off  for  London,  breathing  ven- 
geance against  Churchill,  and  learned  on  arriving  a  new  crime  of  the 
arch-deceiver.  The  Princess  Anne  had  been  some  hours  missing." 

Observe  the  art  with  which  the  flight  of  the  princess 
has  been  kept  back  till  it  can  be  revealed  with  startling 
effect.  The  humorous  story  continues  : 

"  Anne,  who  had  no  will  but  that  of  the  Churchills,  had  been  in- 
duced by  them  to  notify  under  her  own  hand  to  William,  a  week  be- 
fore, her  approbation  of  his  enterprise.  She  assured  him  that  she 
was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  her  friends,  and  that  she  would  retnaift 


V.]  THE  "HISTORY."  147 

in  the  palace  or  take  refuge  in  the  city  as  they  might  determine.  On 
Sunday,  25th  November,  she  and  those  who  thought  for  her  were  un- 
der the  necessity  of  coming  to  a  sudden  resolution.  That  afternoon 
a  courier  from  Salisbury  brought  tidings  that  Churchill  had  disap- 
peared, and  that  he  had  been  accompanied  by  Grafton,  that  Kirke 
had  proved  false,  and  that  the  royal  forces  were  in  full  retreat. 
There  was,  as  usually  happened  when  great  news,  good  or  bad,  ar- 
rived in  town,  an  immense  crowd  that  evening  in  the  gallery  of 
Whitehall.  Curiosity  and  anxiety  sate  on  every  face.  The  Queen 
broke  forth  into  natural  expressions  of  indignation  against  the  chief 
traitor,  and  did  not  altogether  spare  his  too  partial  mistress.  The 
sentinels  were  doubled  round  that  part  of  the  palace  which  Anne 
occupied.  The  princess  was  in  dismay.  In  a  few  hours  her  father 
would  be  at  Westminster.  It  was  not  likely  that  he  would  treat  her 
personally  with  severity ;  but  that  he  would  permit  her  any  longer  to 
enjoy  the  society  of  her  friend  was  not  to  be  hoped.  It  could  hardly 
be  doubted  that  Sarah  would  be  placed  under  arrest,  and  would  be 
subjected  to  a  strict  examination  by  shrewd  and  rigorous  inquisitors. 
Her  papers  would  be  seized ;  perhaps  evidence  affecting  her  life  would 
be  discovered ;  if  so,  the  worst  might  well  be  dreaded.  The  vengeance 
of  the  implacable  King  knew  no  distinction  of  sex.  For  offences  much 
smaller  than  those  which  might  be  brought  home  to  Lady  Churchill 
he  had  sent  women  to  the  scaffold  and  the  stake.  Strong  affection 
braced  the  feeble  mind  of  the  princess.  There  was  no  tie  which  she 
would  not  break,  no  risk  which  she  would  not  run,  for  the  object  of 
her  idolatrous  affection.  '  I  will  jump  out  of  the  window,'  she  cried, 
'  rather  than  be  found  here  by  my  father.'  The  favourite  undertook 
to  manage  an  escape.  She  communicated  in  all  haste  with  some  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  conspiracy.  In  a  few  hours  everything  was  arranged. 
That  evening  Anne  retired  to  her  chamber  as  usual.  At  dead  of  night 
she  rose,  and  accompanied  by  her  friend  Sarah  and  two  other  female 
attendants,  stole  down  the  back  stairs  in  a  dressing-gown  and  slippers. 
The  fugitive  gained  the  open  street  unchallenged.  A  hackney-coach 
was  in  waiting  for  them  there.  Two  men  guarded  the  humble  vehi- 
cle ;  one  of  them  was  Compton,  Bishop  of  London,  the  princess's  old 
tutor ;  the  other  was  the  magnificent  and  accomplished  Dorset,  whom 
the  extremity  of  the  public  danger  had  aroused  from  his  luxurious 
repose.  The  coach  drove  to  Aldersgate  Street,  where  the  town  resi» 
dfcnce  of  the  bishops  of  London  then  stood,  within  the  shadow  of  tneit 
«  •* 


148  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

cathedral.  There  the  princess  passed  the  night.  On  the  following 
morning  she  set  out  for  Epping  Forest.  In  that  wild  tract  Dorset 
possessed  a  venerable  mansion,  which  has  long  since  been  destroyed. 
In  his  hospitable  dwelling,  the  favourite  resort  of  wits  and  poets,  the 
fugitives  made  a  short  stay.  They  could  not  safely  attempt  to  reach 
William's  quarters,  for  the  road  thither  lay  through  a  country  occu- 
pied by  the  royal  forces.  It  was  therefore  determined  that  Anne 
should  take  refuge  with  the  northern  insurgents.  Compton  wholly 
laid  aside  for  the  time  his  sacerdotal  character.  Danger  and  conflict 
had  rekindled  in  him  all  the  military  ardour  which  he  had  felt  twenty- 
eight  years  before,  when  he  rode  in  the  Life  Guards.  He  preceded 
the  princess's  carriage  in  a  buff  coat  and  jackboots,  with  a  sword  at 
his  side,  and  pistols  in  his  holsters.  Long  before  she  reached  Not- 
tingham she  was  surrounded  by  a  body-guard  of  gentlemen  who 
volunteered  to  escort  her.  They  invited  the  bishop  to  act  as  their 
colonel,  and  he  assented  with  an  alacrity  which  gave  great  scandal 
to  rigid  Churchmen,  and  did  not  much  raise  his  character  even  in 
the  opinion  of  Whigs." 

Reserving  the  question  whether  history  gains  or  loses 
by  being  written  in  this  way — a  most  important  reserva- 
tion— it  must  be  allowed  that  of  its  kind  this  is  nearly  as 
good  as  it  can  be.  The  sprightly  vivacity  of  the  scene  is 
worthy  of  any  novel,  yet  it  is  all  a  mosaic  of  actual  fact. 
We  may  call  it  Richardson  grafted  on  Hume. 

Passages  like  these,  as  every  reader  knows,  are  incessant 
in  Macaulay's  History,  and  have  been  the  foundation  of  a 
common  charge  of  "excess  of  ornament."  In  this  there 
seems  to  be  some  misconception,  or  even  confusion  of 
mind,  on  the  part  of  those  who  bring  the  accusation.  It 
is  obviously  open  to  us  to  object  to  this  mode  of  treating 
history  altogether.  We  may  say  that  to  recount  the  his- 
tory of  a  great  state  in  a  sensational  style  befitting  the 
novel  of  adventure  is  a  mistaken  proceeding.  But  this 
objection  eliminates  Macaulay's  History  from  the  pale  of 
toleration.  According  to  his  scheme  such  passages  are 


v.]  THE  "HISTORY."  149 

not  mere  ornament,  but  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole 
structure ;  to  remove  them  would  not  be  to  remove  mere 
excrescences,  but  a  large  portion  of  the  substance  as  well. 
We  must  make  our  choice  between  two  styles  of  history 
— the  one  in  which  the  interest  centres  round  human 
characters,  and  the  other  in  which  it  centres  round  the 
growth  and  play  of  social  forces.  Perhaps  the  two  may 
very  well  exist  side  by  side — perhaps  not ;  but  in  any  case 
we  cannot  with  fairness  employ  the  principles  of  the  one 
to  criticise  the  methods  of  the  other.  Macaulay  wittingly, 
and  after  mature  thought,  adopted  the  style  we  know,  and 
carried  it  out  with  a  sumptuous  pomp  that  has  never  been 
surpassed.  His  ornament,  it  will  be  generally  found,  is  no 
idle  embellishment,  stuck  on  with  vulgar  profusion  in  obe- 
dience to  a  faulty  taste,  but  structurally  useful  parts  of  the 
building,  supporting,  according  to  size  and  position,  a  due 
share  of  the  weight ;  or,  in  other  words,  mere  additional 
facts  for  which  he  is  able  to  find  a  fitting  place.  Take,  for 
instance,  this  little  vignette  of  Monmouth  and  the  Princess 
of  Orange : 

"  The  duke  had  been  encouraged  to  hope  that  in  a  very  short  time 
he  would  be  recalled  to  his  native  land  and  restored  to  all  his  high 
honours  and  commands.  Animated  by  such  expectations,  he  had 
been  the  life  of  the  Hague  during  the  late  winter.  He  had  been  the 
most  conspicuous  figure  at  a  succession  of  balls  in  that  splendid 
Orange  hall  which  blazes  on  every  side  with  the  most  ostentatious 
coloring  of  Jordaens  and  Hondthorst.  He  had  taught  the  English 
country-dance  to  the  Dutch  ladies,  and  had  in  his  turn  learned  from 
them  to  skate  on  the  canals.  The  princess  had  accompanied  him  in 
his  expeditions  on  the  ice ;  and  the  figure  which  she  made  there,  poised 
on  one  leg,  and  clad  in  petticoats  shorter  than  are  generally  worn  by 
ladies  so  strictly  decorous,  had  caused  some  wonder  and  mirth  to  the 
foreign  ministers.  The  sullen  gravity  which  had  been  characteristic 
of  the  Stadtholder's  court  seemed  to  have  vanished  before  the  influ- 


150  MAOAULAY.  [CHAP. 

ence  of  the  fascinating  Englishman.  Even  the  stern  and  pensive 
William  relaxed  into  good -humour  when  his  brilliant  guest  ap- 
peared* 

Will  any  one  say  that  this  is  idle  and  redundant  orna- 
ment ?  Could  the  two  men  who  came  to  deliver  England 
from  the  dull  folly  of  James  II.  be  more  clearly  and  rapid- 
ly sketched,  and  the  failure  of  the  one  and  the  success  of 
the  other  more  suggestively  traced  back  to  the  difference 
of  their  respective  characters  ? 

A  similar  remark  applies  to  the  careful  and  elaborate 
portraits  by  which  all  the  chief  and  most  of  the  secondary 
characters  are  introduced.  They  have  been  much  blamed 
— and  with  reason — by  those  whose  notions  of  history  are 
opposed  to  Macaulay's.  It  must  be  admitted  also  that  he 
had  not  a  quick  eye  for  character,  and  little  of  that  skill 
which  sketches  in  a  few  strokes  the  memorable  features 
of  a  face  or  a  mind.  Still,  from  his  point  of  view  such 
portraits  were  quite  legitimate,  and  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  in  their  way  they  are  often  admirably  done.  They 
overflow  with  knowledge,  they  convey  in  it  an  attractive 
form,  and  they  are  inserted  with  great  art  just  when  they 
are  wanted.  Even  their  length,  which  sometimes  must  be 
pronounced  excessive,  never  seems  to  interfere  with  the 
action  of  the  story.  In  such  an  extensive  gallery  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  make  a  selection.  Perhaps  the  twentieth  chapter, 
containing  the  fine  series  of  portraits  of  Sunderland,  Rus- 
sell, Somers,  Montague,  Wharton,  and  Harley,  may  be 
named  as  among  the  most  remarkable.  Taken  altogether 
they  occupy  more  than  twenty  pages.  An  important  sub- 
ject—  the  first  formation  of  a  Ministry  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  word — is  dropped  for  the  purpose  of  introdu- 
cing them,  yet  so  skilful  is  the  handling  that  we  are  con- 
fcoious  of  ho  confusing  interruption;  This  merit  distiti» 


V.]  THE  "HISTORY.1'  151 

guishes  Macaulay's  illustrations,  and  even  digressions,  al- 
most invariably.  They  never  seem  to  be  digressions. 
Instead  of  quenching  the  interest,  they  heighten  it ;  and 
after  his  widest  excursions  he  brings  the  reader  back  to 
the  original  point  with  a  curiosity  more  keen  then  ever  in 
the  main  story.  Greater  evidence  of  power  could  hardly 
be  given. 

In  criticising  Macaulay's  History  we  should  ever  bear 
in  mind  it  is  after  all  only  a  fragment,  though  a  colossal 
fragment.  We  have  only  a  small  portion  of  the  edifice 
that  he  had  planned  in  his  mind.  History,  which  has  so 
many  points  of  contact  with  architecture,  resembles  it  also 
in  this,  that  in  both  impressiveness  largely  depends  on  size. 
A  few  arches  can  give  no  adequate  notion  of  the  long 
colonnade.  Of  Macaulay's  work  we  have,  so  to  speak, 
only  a  few  arches.  It  is  true  that  he  built  on  such  a 
scale  that  the  full  completion  of  his  design  was  beyond 
the  limited  span  of  one  man's  life  and  power.  But  had 
he  lived  ten  or  fifteen  years  longer — as  he  well  might,  and 
then  not  have  exceeded  the  age  of  several  of  his  great 
contemporaries,  Hallam,  Thiers,  Guizot,  Michelet,  Kanke, 
Carlyle — and  carried  on  his  work  to  double  or  treble  its 
present  length,  it  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  increased 
grandeur  which  would  have  resulted.  Such  a  structure, 
so  spacious  and  lofty,  required  length  for  harmonious  pro- 
portion. As  it  is,  the  History  of  England  reminds  one 
of  the  unfinished  cathedral  of  Beauvais.  The  ornate  and 
soaring  choir  wants  the  balance  of  a  majestic  nave,  and 
the  masterpiece  of  French  Gothic  is  deprived  of  its  proper 
rank  from  mere  incompleteness. 

Unfortunately,  the  History  can  be  reproached  with  more 
serious  faults  than  incompleteness.  The  most  common 
objections  are  the  unfair  party-spirit  supposed  to  pervade 


152  MACATJLAY.  [CHAR 

the  book,  and  its  strange  inaccuracies  as  to  matters  of 
fact. 

The  accusation  of  party-spirit  seems  on  the  whole  to  be 
unfounded,  and  we  may  suspect  is  chiefly  made  by  those 
whose  own  prejudices  are  so  strong  that  they  resent  im- 
partiality nearly  as  much  as  hostility.  He  that  is  not 
with  them  is  against  them.  Macaulay,  when  he  wrote  his 
History,  had  ceased  to  be  a  party  man  as  regards  con- 
temporary politics,  and  in  his  work  he  is  neither  a  Whig 
nor  a  Tory  but  a  Williamite.  He  over  and  over  condemns 
the  Whigs  in  unqualified  terms,  and  he  always  does  justice 
to  the  really  upright  and  high-minded  Tories.  The  proof 
of  this  will  be  found  in  the  warmth  of  his  eulogy  and  ad- 
miration for  eminent  nonjurors,  such  as  Bishop  Ken  and 
Jeremy  Collier.  As  clergymen  and  uncompromising  To- 
ries they  would  have  been  equally  repugnant  to  him,  if 
party -spirit  had  governed  his  sympathies  to  the  extent 
supposed.  The  fact  is  that  there  are  few  characters  men- 
tioned in  the  whole  course  of  his  History  of  whom  he 
speaks  in  such  warm,  almost  such  enthusiastic,  praise.  Of 
the  sainted  Bishop  of  Wells  he  writes  with  a  reverence 
which  is  not  a  common  sentiment  with  him  for  anybody. 
Of  the  author  of  a  Short  View  of  the  English  Stage  he  is 
likely  to  be  thought  by  those  who  have  read  that  book  to 
speak  with  excessive  eulogy.  But  he  considered  them 
very  justly  to  be  thoroughly  upright  and  conscientious 
men,  and  for  such,  it  must  be  admitted,  he  had  a  very 
partial  feeling.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  show  that  he  has 
ever  been  unjust  or  at  all  unfair  to  the  Tories  as  a  party 
or  as  individuals.  He  blames  them  freely;  but  so  he 
blames  the  Whigs.  The  real  origin  of  this  charge  of  par- 
ty-spirit may  probably  be  traced  to  the  unfavourable  im- 
pression he  conveys  of  the  house  of  Stuart.  The  senti- 


v.]  THE  "HISTORY."  158 

mental  Jacobitism  fostered  by  Scott  and  others  took  of- 
fence at  his  treatment  of  the  king  of  the  Cavaliers  and  his 
two  sons.  But  is  he  unfair,  or  even  unduly  severe  1  If 
ever  a  dynasty  of  princes  was  condemned,  and  deserved 
condemnation,  at  the  bar  of  history,  it  was  that  perverse 
and  incompetent  race,  who  plotted  and  carried  out  their 
own  destruction  with  a  perseverance  which  other  sover- 
eigns have  brought  to  the  consolidation  of  their  power. 
Are  impartial  foreigners,  such  as  Ranke  and  Gneist,  less 
severe  ?  On  the  contrary.  "  Another  royal  family,"  says 
the  latter,  "  could  hardly  be  named  which  has  shown  on 
the  throne  in  an  equal  degree  such  a  total  want  of  all 
sense  of  kingly  duty."  Nay,  we  have  what  some  persons 
will  consider  the  highest  authority  pronouncing  in  Macau- 
lay's  favour.  We  read  in  his  diary  of  March  9,1850: 
"  To  dinner  at  the  palace.  The  Queen  was  most  gracious 
to  me.  She  talked  much  about  my  book,  and  owned  she 
had  nothing  to  say  for  her  poor  ancestor  James  II."  One 
can  understand  a  preference  for  arbitrary  power ;  one  can 
appreciate  an  admiration  for  the  heroic  Strafford.  But 
Charles  I.  and  James  II.  were  mere  blunderers,  whose  lust 
for  power  was  only  equalled  by  their  inability  to  use  it. 

With  regard  to  individuals  the  case  is  different.  He 
allowed  himself  to  cultivate  strong  antipathies  towards  a 
number  of  persons — statesmen,  soldiers,  men  of  letters — 
in  the  past,  and  he  pursued  them  with  a  personal  animosi- 
ty which  could  hardly  have  been  exceeded  if  they  had 
crossed  him  in  the  club  or  the  House  of  Commons.  He 
conceived  a  contemptuous  view  of  their  characters;  his 
strong  historical  imagination  gave  them  the  reality  of 
living  beings,  whom  he  was  always  meeting  "  in  the  cor- 
ridors of  Time,"  and  each  encounter  embittered  his  hostil- 
ity. Marlborough,  Penn,  and  Dundee  (in  his  History), 


164  MACAULA?:  [CRAP. 

Boswell,  Impey,  and  Walpole  (in  his  Essays),  always  more 
or  less  stir  his  bile,  and  his  prejudice  leads  him  into  serious 
inaccuracies.  One  naturally  seeks  to  inquire  what  may 
have  been  the  cause  of  such  obliquity  in  a  man  who  was 
never,  by  enmity  itself,  accused  of  wanting  generous  feel- 
ings, and  whom  it  is  almost  impossible  to  suspect  of  con- 
scious unfairness.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  Macaulay 
had,  like  most  eminent  men,  les  defauts  de  ses  qualites. 
One  of  his  qualities  was  a  punctilious  regard  for  truth  and 
straightforward  dealing.  Another  was  supreme  common 
sense.  The  first  made  him  hate  and  despise  knaves,  the 
second  made  him  detest  dunces ;  and  he  did  both  with  un- 
necessary scorn — with  a  sort  of  donnish  and  self-righteous 
complacency  which  is  anything  but  winning.  He  made 
up  his  mind  that  Boswell  was  a  pushing,  impertinent  fool ; 
and  for  fools  he  had  no  mercy.  He  satisfied  himself  that 
Bacon  was  a  corrupt  judge;  that  Impey  was  an  unjust 
judge;  that  Marlborough  was  a  base,  avaricious  time- 
server  ;  and  that  Penn  was  a  pompous  hypocrite,  or  some- 
thing very  like  it.  For  such  vices  he  had  little  or  no 
tolerance,  and  he  was  somewhat  inclined  to  lose  his  head 
in  his  anger  at  them.  That  in  all  the  cases  referred  to  he 
showed  precipitancy  and,  what  is  worse,  obstinate  persist- 
ence in  error,  unfortunately,  cannot  be  denied.  But  there 
was  nothing  unworthy  in  his  primary  impulse.  It  was  a 
perverted  form  of  the  sense  of  justice  to  which  upright 
men  are  sometimes  prone,  somewhat  resembling  that  ar- 
rogance of  virtue  which  misleads  good  women  into  harsh- 
ness towards  their  less  immaculate  sisters. 

Whatever  this  plea  may  be  worth,  it  cannot  blind  us  to 
the  serious  breaches  of  historical  fidelity  which  he  has  been 
led  to  commit.  Mr.  Paget,  in  his  New  Examen,  has  proved 
beyond  question  that,  with  regard  to  Marlborough  and 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  155 

Penn,  Macaulay  has  been  guilty  of  gross  inaccuracy,  nay, 
even  perversions  of  the  truth.  For  details  of  the  evidence 
the  reader  must  consult  Mr.  Paget.  The  miscarriage  of  the 
attack  on  Brest,  which  Macaulay  lays  exclusively  "  on  the 
basest  of  all  the  hundred  villanies  of  Marlborough,"  is 
shown  to  have  failed  through  the  imprudent  valour  of 
Talmash.  William  and  his  ministers  were  well  aware  that 
the  French  knew  of  the  expedition,  and  had  long  been  pre- 
pared to  repel  it.  The  King  writes,  "  They  were  long  ap- 
prised of  our  intended  attack,"  and  mildly  lays  the  blame 
on  the  rashness  of  his  own  general.  But  Macaulay  makes 
it  appear  that  through  Marlborough's  treachery  the  English 
forces  went  blindly  to  their  own  destruction.  Expecting 
to  surprise  the  French,  we  are  told,  they  found  them  armed 
to  the  teeth,  solely  in  consequence  of  information  sent  to 
James  II.  by  Churchill ;  hence  the  failure,  and  the  deaths 
of  Talmash  and  many  brave  men,  of  whom  Macaulay  does 
not  scruple  to  call  Marlborough  the  "  murderer."  It  must 
be  owned  that  this  is  very  serious ;  and  it  does  not  much 
mend  the  matter  to  ascribe,  as  we  surely  may,  Macaulay's 
inaccuracy  to  invincible  prejudice,  rather  than  to  ignorance 
or  dishonesty.  He  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  Marl- 
borough  was  a  faithless  intriguer,  which  may  be  quite  true ; 
but  that  was  no  reason  for  charging  him  with  crimes  which 
he  did  not  commit.  Let  it  be  noticed,  however,  that  the 
refusal  to  be  dazzled  by  military  glory,  and  to  accept  it  as 
a  set-off  to  any  moral  delinquency,  is  no  vulgar  merit  in  an 
historian.  Mr.  Carlyle  has  been  heard  to  say  that  Rhada- 
manthus  would  certainly  give  Macaulay  four  dozen  lashes, 
when  he  went  to  the  Shades,  for  his  treatment  of  Marl- 
borough.  This  is  quite  in  character  for  the  Scotch  apostle 
of  "blood  and  iron."  Macaulay  could  admire  military 

genius  when  united  with  magnanimity  and  public  virtue 
L 


156  MACAULAY.  [CHAP- 

as  warmly  as  any  one.     But  he  could  not  accept  it  as  a 
compensation  for  the  want  of  truth  and  honour. 

His  treatment  of  Penn  admits  of  the  same  kind  of  im- 
perfect palliation.  He  had  satisfied  himself  that  the  Quak- 
er was,  for  a  time  at  least,  a  time-server  and  a  sycophant. 
And  he  allowed  his  disgust  at  such  a  character  to  hurry 
him  into  culpable  unfairness,  which  has  been  exposed  by 
the  late  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  and  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster,  as 
well  as  by  Mr.  Paget.  The  animosity  with  which  he  pur- 
sues Penn  —  the  false  colouring  amounting,  in  places,  to 
real  misrepresentation,  which  he  gives  to  actions  innocent 
or  laudable,  can  only  excite  astonishment  and  regret.  His 
account  of  Penn's  interference  in  the  dispute  between  the 
King  and  Magdalen  College  is  almost  mendacious.  He 
would  make  it  appear  that  Penn  acted  merely  as  a  ready 
and  unscrupulous  tool  of  James  II.  "  The  courtly  Quaker 
did  his  best  to  seduce  the  College  from  the  right  path. 
He  first  tried  intimidation."  (ffist.,  cap.  viii.)  Now,  noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  it  was  the  College  which  in- 
voked Penn's  mediation  with  the  King.  The  whole  sub- 
ject is  a  painful  one,  and  we  would  gladly  leave  it.  The 
only  inducement  we  can  have  to  linger  over  it  is  the  query, 
What  was  the  chief  motive  or  origin  of  such  historical  un- 
faithfulness ?  A  partial  answer  to  this  question  has  been 
attempted  above — that  a  wrong-headed  species  of  righteous 
indignation  got  possession  of  the  writer's  mind,  and  led  him 
into  the  evil  paths  of  injustice  and  untruth.  But  there  was 
besides  another  temptation  to  lead  Macaulay  astray,  to  which 
few  historians  have  been  exposed  in  an  equal  degree.  His 
plan  of  assimilating  real  to  fictitious  narrative — of  writing 
history  on  the  lines  of  the  novel — obscured  or  confused 
his  vision  for  plain  fact.  His  need  of  lighter  and  darker 
shades  caused  him  to  make  colours  when  he  could  not  find 


V.]  THE  "HISTORY.'^  157 

them ;  his  necessities  as  an  artist  forced  him  to  correct  the 
adverse  fortune  which  had  not  provided  him  with  the  tints 
which  his  purpose  required.  No  well-constructed  play  or 
novel  can  dispense  with  a  villain,  whose  vices  throw  up  in 
brighter  relief  the  virtues  of  the  hero  and  the  heroine. 
That  he  did  yield  to  this  temptation  we  have  ample  evi- 
dence. It  caused  him  to  use  his  authorities  in  a  way  that 
serious  history  must  entirely  condemn.  Mr.  Spedding  has 
shown  how  freely  he  deviated  into  fiction  in  his  libel  on 
Bacon :  a  molecule  of  truth  serves  as  a  basis  for  a  super- 
structure of  fancy.  To  Bacon's  intellectual  greatness  a 
contrast  was  needed — and  it  is  found  partly  in  the  gen- 
erosity of  Essex,  and  partly  in  his  own  supposed  moral 
baseness.  A  good  instance  of  Macaulay's  tendency  to  per- 
vert his  authorities  to  artistic  uses  will  be  found  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  dying  speech  of  Robert  Francis,  who  was  ex- 
ecuted for  the  alleged  murder  of  Dangerfield,  by  striking 
him  in  the  eye  with  a  cane.  Repelling  a  scandalous  report 
that  the  act  had  been  prompted  by  jealousy,  on  the  ground 
of  Dangerfield's  criminal  relations  with  his  wife,  Francis 
declared  on  the  scaffold  that  he  was  certain  that  she  had 
never  seen  him  in  her  whole  life,  and  added,  "  Besides  that, 
she  is  as  virtuous  a  woman  as  lives ;  and  born  of  so  good 
and  loyal  a  family,  she  would  have  scorned  to  prostitute 
herself  to  such  a  profligate  person."  In  Macaulay's  version 
this  statement  is  altered  and  dressed  up  thus : 

"  The  dying  husband,  with  an  earnestness  half  ridiculous,  half 
pathetic,  vindicated  the  lady's  character ;  she  was,  he  said,  a  virtuous 
woman,  she  came  of  a  loyal  stock,  and  if  she  had  been  inclined  to 
break  her  marriage  vow,  would  at  least  have  selected  a  Tory  and  a 
Churchman  for  her  paramour." 

This   is   the    result  of  treating  history  in   the   style   of 

romance.     It  is,  no  doubt,  probably  true  that  if  the  virfr 
25 


158  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

uous  and  calumniated  Mrs.  Francis  had  permitted  herself 
to  have  a  paramour,  he  would  have  been  a  Tory  and  a 
Churchman.  But  what  are  we  to  think  of  an  historian 
who  presents  in  oratio  obliqua  this  poetic  probability  as 
the  actual  assertion  of  the  dying  husband  ? 

It  is  even  less  easy  to  account  for  Macaulay's  treatment 
of  the  Anglican  clergy.  No  one  thing  in  his  History  gave 
such  deep  and  permanent  offence.  It  is  difficult  even  to 
surmise  a  reason  for  the  line  he  took.  The  imperfect  ex- 
cuses which  may  be  pleaded  for  his  injustice  to  individ- 
uals, will  not  avail  in  this  case.  Neither  an  ill -regulated 
zeal  for  virtue,  nor  the  needs  of  picturesque  history,  de- 
manded the  singular  form  of  depreciation  of  the  English 
clergy  which  he  has  allowed  himself.  He  does  not  arraign 
their  morality,  or  their  patriotism,  or  even  their  culture 
on  the  whole — but  their  social  position:  they  were  not 
gentlemen ;  they  were  regarded  as  on  the  whole  a  plebeian 
class ;  "  for  one  who  made  the  figure  of  a  gentleman,  ten 
were  menial  servants."  He  must  have  been  well  aware 
that  such  a  reflection  conveyed  an  affront  which,  in  our 
society,  would  not  readily  be  forgiven.  Nor  has  it  been. 
One  frequently  meets  with  persons  who  will  not  tolerate 
a  good  word  for  Macaulay ;  and  if  the  ground  of  their 
repugnance  is  sought  for,  we  generally  find  it  in  these 
remarks  upon  the  clergy.  The  climax  of  insult  was 
reached  in  the  aspersion  thrown  on  the  wives  of  clergy- 
men, that  they  were  generally  women  whose  "  characters 
had  been  blown  upon ;"  and  this  is  based  on  no  better 
authority  than  a  line  in  Swift  —  unusually  audacious, 
cynical,  and  indecent,  even  for  him.  The  tone  of  the 
whole  passage — some  eight  or  ten  pages — savours  more 
of  satire  and  caricature  than  of  sober  history.  Whether 
that  "  invincible  suspicion  of  parsons "  which  Mr  Leslie 


y.]  THE  "HISTORY."  159 

Stephen  declares  to  be  a  characteristic  of  the  true  Whig, 
was  at  the  bottom  of  it,  one  would  not  like  to  say.  But 
few  would  deny  that  Macaulay,  in  his  treatment  of  the 
Church  of  England,  has  more  openly  yielded  to  the 
promptings  of  party-spirit  than  in  any  other  portions  of 
his  History. 

Nevertheless,  they  deceive  themselves  who  think  that 
they  can  brand  Macaulay  with  the  stigma  of  habitual 
and  pervading  unfaithfulness.  He  does  not  belong  to 
that  select  band  of  writers  whose  accuracy  may  be  taken 
for  granted — to  the  class  of  Bentley,  Gibbon,  and  Bayle — 
who  seem  provided  with  an  extra  sense  which  saves  them 
from  the  shortcomings  of  other  men.  He  has  a  share  of 
ordinary  human  infirmity,  but  not  a  large  share.  He  can 
be  prejudiced  and  incorrect ;  but  these  failings  are  most 
assuredly  the  exception,  not  the  rule.  Above  all,  he 
impresses  all  impartial  judges  with  a  conviction  of  his 
honesty.  "There  never  was  a  writer  less  capable  of 
intentional  unfairness,"  says  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  still  is 
well  aware  how  inaccurate  he  could  be  on  occasion.  His 
inaccuracy  arose  from  hearty  dislike  for  men  of  whom  he 
honestly  thought  ill.  Of  conscious  duplicity  and  untruth, 
BO  one  who  knows  him  can  conceive  him  guilty. 

We  now  turn  to  the  reservation  made  a  few  pages 
back,  and  inquire  how  far  Macaulay's  conception  of  his- 
tory deserves  to  be  commended  in  itself,  irrespective  of 
the  talent  with  which  he  put  it  into  execution. 

In  a  letter  to  Macvey  Napier,  Macaulay  wrote :  "  I 
have  at  last  begun  my  historical  labours.  .  .  .  The  materials 
for  an  amusing  narrative  are  immense.  I  shall  not  be 
satisfied  unless  I  produce  something  which  shall  for  a  few 
days  supersede  the  last  fashionable  novel  on  the  tables  of 
young  ladies."  We  did  not  need  this  intimation  to  make 


160  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

us  acquainted  with  the  chief  object  which  the  writer  had 
in  view ;  but  it  is  satisfactory  to  have  it,  as  now  no  doubt 
remains  on  the  subject.  This,  then,  was  Macaulay's  pole* 
star,  by  which  he  guided  his  historical  argosy  over  the 
waters  of  the  past — young  ladies  for  readers,  laying  down 
the  novel  of  the  season  to  take  up  his  History  of  England. 
His  star  led  him  to  the  port  for  which  he  steered.  But 
how  widely  it  made  him  depart  from  the  great  ocean 
highway  frequented  by  ships  bound  for  more  daring  vent- 
ures, it  is  now  our  business  to  examine  and  show. 

The  chief  objections  which  may  be  made  against  the 
History  are  the  following : 

(1.)  Want  of  generalized  and  synthetic  views. 

(2.)  Excessive  diffuseness. 

(3.)  Deficient  historical  spirit. 

(l.)  As  a  work  of  art  the  History  is  so  bright  and  im- 
pressive, it  appeals  so  strongly  to  the  imagination,  that  we 
do  not  at  first  perceive  how  little  it  appeals  to  the  reason, 
or  how  little  it  offers  by  way  of  enlightenment  to  the 
mind.  Any  page,  or  even  chapter  taken  at  random,  is 
almost  sure  to  charm  us  by  its  colour,  variety,  and  inter- 
est. But  when  we  read  a  whole  volume,  or,  still  more,  the 
whole  work  through,  pretty  rapidly,  we  become  conscious 
of  a  great  omission.  In  spite  of  the  amazing  skill  of  the 
narrative,  of  the  vivid  and  exciting  scenes  that  are  mar- 
shalled past  us  as  on  some  great  stage,  the  reflective  fac- 
ulty finds  its  interest  diminishing ;  while  the  eye  and  the 
fancy  are  surfeited  with  good  things,  the  intellect  is  sent 
empty  away.  It  is  not  easy  to  retain  any  definite  impres- 
sion of  what  the  book  has  taught  us.  We  remember  that 
while  reading  it  we  had  a  most  amusing  entertainment, 
that  crowds  of  people  in  old-fashioned  costumes,  who  took 
part  in  exciting  scenes,  were  presented  us.  But  our  recot 


V.]  THE  "HISTORY."  161 

lection  of  the  whole  resembles  very  much  our  recollection 
of  a  carnival  or  a  masked  ball  a  few  weeks  after  it  is  over. 
Our  memory  of  English  history  seems  to  have  been  at 
once  brightened  and  confused. 

The  reason,  as  Macaulay  would  have  said,  is  very  obvi- 
ous: while  no  historian  ever  surpassed  him  in  the  art  of 
brilliantly  narrating  events,  few  among  the  men  of  mark 
have  been  so  careless  or  incapable  of  classifying  them  in 
luminous  order,  which  attracts  the  attention  of  the  mind. 
Engrossed  with  the  dramatic  and  pictorial  side  of  history, 
he  paid  little  attention  to  that  side  which  gives  expression 
to  general  views,  which  embraces  a  mass  of  details  in  an 
abstract  statement,  thereby  throwing  vastly  increased  light 
and  interest  on  the  details  themselves.  He  never  resumes 
in  large  traits  the  character  of  an  epoch — never  traces  in 
clear  outline  the  movement  (entwicklungsgang)  of  a  pe- 
riod, showing  as  on  a  skeleton  map  the  line  of  progress. 
It  does  not  appear  that  he  yielded  to  the  silly  notion  that 
abstract  history  must  necessarily  be  incorrect.  All  histo- 
ry, unfortunately,  is  liable  to  be  incorrect,  and  concrete 
history  as  much  as  any.  It  is  nearly  as  easy  to  blunder  in 
summing  up  the  character  of  a  man — as  Penn  or  Marlbor- 
ough — as  in  summing  up  the  character  of  a  period.  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  however,  which  is  the  more  valuable  and 
important  thing  to  do.  History  must  become  a  chaos  if 
its  increasing  volume  and  complexity  are  not  lightened 
and  methodized  by  general  and  synthetic  views.  It  is  in 
this  respect  that  the  modern  school  of  history  is  so  supe-. 
rior  to  the  ancient.  We  may  see  this  by  remarking  the 
errors  into  which  the  greatest  men  formerly  fell — from 
which  very  small  men  are  now  preserved.  When  we  find 
such  a  statesman  as  Machiavelli  ascribing  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  to  the  treachery  and  ambition  of  Stilicho, 


162  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

who  "contrived  that  the  Burgundians,  Franks,  Vandals, 
and  Alans  should  assail  the  Roman  provinces;"  when  we 
find  such  a  genius  as  Montesquieu  accounting  for  the  same 
catastrophe  by  the  imprudent  transfer  of  the  seat  of  em- 
pire, which  carried  all  the  wealth  from  Rome  to  Constan- 
tinople ;  or  such  a  scholar  as  Gibbon  still  explaining  the 
same  event  by  the  refusal  of  the  Roman  legionaries  to 
wear  defensive  armour,  we  are  able  to  appreciate  the  prog- 
ress that  has  been  made  in  comprehending  the  past.  Those 
great  men  saw  nothing  absurd  in  attributing  the  most  mo- 
mentous social  transformation  recorded  in  history  to  quite 
trivial  and  superficial  causes.  If  we  know  better,  it  is  be- 
cause the  study  of  society,  whether  past  or  present,  has 
made  some  progress  towards  scientific  shape.  This  prog- 
ress was  not  furthered  by  Macaulay.  He  contributed 
nothing  to  our  intelligence  of  the  past,  though  he  did  so 
much  for  its  pictorial  illustration. 

For  instance.  He  has  not  grasped  and  reproduced  in 
well-weighed  general  proportions  the  import  and  historical 
meaning  of  the  Stuart  period,  which  was  his  real  object. 
He  has  painted  many  phases  of  it  with  almost  redundant 
fulness.  But  he  has  not  traced  the  evolution  of  those 
ideas  and  principles  which  mark  its  peculiar  character. 
He  mentions  the  "strange  theories  of  Filmer,"  but  instead 
of  pointing  out  their  origin,  and  the  causes  of  their  growth 
(which  was  the  historical  problem)  he  seriously  controverts 
them  from  the  modern  point  of  view,  as  if  Filmer  needed 
refuting  nowadays.  He  devotes  over  two  pages  to  this 
work  of  supererogation.  But  if  we  ask  why  this  notion 
of  divine  right  rose  into  such  prominence  at  this  particular 
time,  he  has  nothing  to  say.  He  rarely  or  never  accounts 
for  a  phase  of  thought,  institution,  or  line  of  policy, 
tracing  it  back  to  antecedent  causes,  and  showing  how, 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  163 

under  the  circumstances,  it  was  the  natural  and  legitimate 
result.  What  he  does  is  to  describe  it  with  often  weari- 
some prolixity.  He  describes  the  Church  of  England  over 
and  over  again  from  the  outside,  from  a  sort  of  dissenter's 
point  of  view ;  but  except  the  not  recondite  suggestion 
that  the  Church  of  England  was  a  compromise  between 
the  "  Church  of  Rome  and  the  Church  of  Geneva,"  he 
really  tells  us  nothing.  This  idea  of  a  compromise  strikes 
him  as  so  weighty  and  important  that  he  develops  it  with 
an  elaboration  which  is  common  with  him,  and  which 
Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  irreverently  calls  his  zeal  "for  blacking 
the  chimney."  Thus: 

"In  every  point  of  her  system  the  same  policy  may  be  traced. 
Utterly  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  and  condemning 
as  idolatrous  all  adoration  paid  to  sacramental  bread  and  wine,  she 
yet,  to  the  disgust  of  the  Puritan,  required  her  children  to  receive  the 
memorials  of  Divine  love  meekly  kneeling  upon  their  knees.  Dis- 
carding many  rich  vestments  which  surrounded  the  altars  of  the 
ancient  faith,  she  yet  retained,  to  the  horror  of  weak  minds,  the  robe 
of  white  linen,  which  typified  the  purity  which  belonged  to  her  as  the 
mystical  spouse  of  Christ.  Discarding  a  crowd  of  pantomimic  gest- 
ures, which  in  the  Roman  Catholic  worship  are  substituted  for  intel- 
ligible words,  she  yet  shocked  many  rigid  Protestants  by  marking 
the  infant  just  sprinkled  from  the  font  with  the  sign  of  the  cross. 
The  Roman  Catholic  addressed  his  prayers  to  a  multitude  of  saints, 
among  whom  were  numbered  many  men  of  doubtful,  and  some  of 
hateful  character.  The  Puritan  refused  the  addition  of  saint,  even 
to  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  and  to  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved. 
The  Church  of  England,  though  she  asked  for  the  intercession  of  no 
created  being,  still  set  apart  days  for  the  commemoration  of  some 
who  had  done  and  suffered  great  things  for  the  faith.  She  retained 
confirmation  and  ordination  as  edifying  rites,  but  she  degraded  them 
from  the  rank  of  sacraments.  Shrift  was  no  part  of  her  system; 
yet  she  gently  invited  the  dying  penitent  to  confess  his  sins  to  a 
divine,  and  empowered  her  ministers  to  soothe  the  departing  soul  by 
an  absolution  which  breathes  the  very  spirit  of  the  old  religion.  IE 
8 


164  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

general,  it  may  be  said  that  she  appeals  more  to  the  understanding, 
and  less  to  the  senses  and  the  imagination,  than  the  Church  of 
Rome ;  and  that  she  appeals  less  to  the  understanding,  and  more  to 
the  senses  and  imagination,  than  the  Protestant  churches  of  Scotland, 
France,  and  Switzerland." 

There  are  five  pages  more  of  a  quality  quite  up  to  this 
sample.  Now,  the  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  this  is  not 
history  at  all.  The  historian  of  the  seventeenth  century 
is  not  concerned  with  what  the  Church  of  England  is  or 
is  not ;  but  with  how  she  came  to  be  what  she  was  in  the 
days  of  the  Stuarts.  What  we  want  to  know  is  how  and 
why  the  Puritan  bishops  of  Elizabeth  were  succeeded  in 
a  few  years  by  the  High  Church  bishops  of  James  and 
Charles?  Those  who  ask  these  questions  must  not  ad- 
dress themselves  to  Macaulay.  He  can  only  tell  them  that 
"the  Arminian  doctrine  spread  fast  and  wide,"  and  that 
"  the  infection  soon  reached  the  court."  Why  the  trans- 
formation of  opinion  took  place  he  does  not  attempt  to 
explain.  The  singular  theory  which  he  held  as  to  the 
inherent  unreasonableness  of  all  religious  opinion — that 
it  was  a  matter  of  mere  accident  and  caprice — no  doubt 
seriously  hampered  him  in  his  treatment  of  these  topics. 
But  it  is  strange  that  he  was  not  surprised  at  his  own 
inability  to  deal  with  a  whole  order  of  historical  phenom- 
ena of  constant  recurrence  since  Europe  became  Christian. 
How  differently  did  Gibbon  handle  a  vastly  more  diffi- 
cult theme — the  orthodox  and  heretical  dogmas  of  the 
early  Church. 

Even  the  constitutional  side  of  his  subject  is  neglected, 
though  probably  few  historians  or  politicians  have  known 
it  better  or  have  valued  it  more.  But  we  look  in  vain  in 
his  pages  for  a  clear  exposition,  freed  from  the  confusion 
of  details,  of  the  progressive  stages  of  the  conflict  between 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  165 

the  Crown  and  the  Parliament  during  the  Stuart  period — 
the  momenta  of  the  struggle  set  forth  in  luminous  order, 
showing  how  a  move  on  one  side  was  answered  by  a  move 
on  the  other.  In  vivid  concrete  narrative  Macaulay  has 
few  equals ;  but  in  that  form  of  abstract  narrative  which 
traces  the  central  idea  and  energy  of  a  social  movement, 
carefully  excluding  the  disturbing  intrusion  of  particular 
facts,  he  showed  little  aptitude ;  when  he  attempts  it,  he 
cannot  maintain  it  for  long;  he  falls  off  into  his  bright 
picturesque  style.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  what  purpose 
Macaulay  had  in  view  by  writing  his  first  chapter  in  its 
present  form.  A  brief  and  weighty  sketch  of  the  growth 
and  progress  of  the  English  constitution  would  have  been 
a  worthy  preface  to  his  history  of  the  last  great  struggle 
for  parliamentary  government.  But  he  has  not  attempted 
anything  of  the  kind.  It  would  not  have  occurred  to 
every  one  to  review  English  history  from  the  Saxon 
times,  and  not  mention  once  Simon  de  Montfort's  name, 
nor  even  refer  to  the  institutions  he  fostered,  except  with 
a  vagueness  that  was  utterly  unmeaning.  The  thirteenth 
century  he  describes  as  a  "sterile  and  obscure"  portion 
of  our  annals.  He  even  does  his  best  to  appear  guilty 
of  an  ignorance  with  which  it  is  impossible  to  credit 
him.  Speaking  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  he  says  "the 
talents  and  even  the  virtues  of  the  first  six  French  kings 
were  a  curse  to  England ;  the  follies  and  vices  of  the 
seventh  were  her  salvation."  And  why?  Because,  "If 
John  had  inherited  the  great  qualities  of  his  father,  of 
Henry  Beauclerc,  or  of  the  Conqueror  .  .  .  the  house  of 
Plantagenet  must  have  risen  to  unrivalled  ascendency  in 
Europe."  Frightful  results  would  have  followed.  "  Eng- 
land would  never  have  had  an  independent  existence 
. .  .  the  noble  language  of  Milton  and  Burke  would  have 


166  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

remained  a  rustic  dialect,  without  a  literature,  a  fixed 
grammar,  or  a  fixed  orthography."  It  is  not  easy  to 
believe  that  Macaulay  was  unaware  of  the  debt  that  Eng- 
land owed  to  her  vigorous  Norman  and  Angevin  kings — 
that  their  strong  despotism  carried  our  country  rapidly 
through  several  stages  of  political  development,  for  which 
other  nations  had  to  wait  for  centuries.  In  the  same 
light  vein  he  has  a'  strange  paragraph  about  the  "  parlia- 
mentary assemblies "  of  Europe,  in  which  he  contrasts  the 
failure  of  parliamentary  government  on  the  Continent 
with  its  success  in  England.  The  reason  was  that  those 
assemblies  were  not  wise  like  the  English  parliament  was: 
they  were  not  sufficiently  vigilant  and  cautious  in  roting 
taxes.  The  policy  which  they  "  ought  to  have  adopted 
was  to  take  their  stand  firmly  on  their  constitutional 
right  to  give  or  withhold  money,  and  resolutely  to  refuse 
funds  for  the  support  of  armies,  till  ample  securities  had 
been  provided  against  despotism.  This  wise  policy  was 
followed  in  our  country  alone."  This  policy  succeeded 
in  England  alone ;  but  it  was  tried  repeatedly  in  France 
and  Spain  during  several  centuries,  and  if  it  failed  it  was 
certainly  not  because  Frenchmen  and  Spaniards  over- 
looked its  wisdom,  but  because  that  unanimity  of  na- 
tional life  which  the  Nornran  Conquest  had  produced  in 
England  was  absent  in  those  countries.  But  Macaulay 
as  an  historian  cared  for  none  of  these  things.  His 
morbid  dread  of  dulness  made  him  shrink  from  them. 
In  this  very  chapter,  where  he  cannot  find  space  for  the 
most  important  topics  of  English  history,  he  readilj 
dilates  in  his  picturesque  way  on  the  manners  of  the 
Normans  during  a  page  and  a  half. 

(2.)  As  regards  his  diffuseness  there  can   be  but  one 
opinion.     The  way  in  which  he  will  go  on  repeating  the 


T.]  THE  "HISTORY."  167 

same  idea  in  every  form  and  variation  that  his  vast  re- 
sources of  language  enabled  him  to  command  is  extraordi- 
nary to  witness.  He  seems  to  take  as  much  pains  to  be 
redundant  and  prolix  as  other  men  take  to  be  terse  and 
compressed.  When  he  has  to  tell  us  that  the  Reformation 
greatly  diminished  the  wealth  of  the  Church  of  England,  it 
costs  him  two  pages  to  say  so.1  When  he  has  to  describe 
the  change  that  came  over  Tory  opinion  after  the  trial  of 
the  seven  bishops,  he  requires  six  pages  to  deliver  his 
thought.9  And  this  is  his  habitual  manner  whenever  he 
depicts  the  state  of  religious  or  political  opinion.  That 
it  was  intentional  cannot  be  doubted;  it  was  his  way  of 
"  making  his  meaning  pellucid,"  as  he  said  ;  which  it  cer- 
tainly did,  rendering  it  as  clear  as  distilled  water,  and  about 
as  strong.  But  it  would  be  rash  to  assume  that  it  was  a 
mistake  from  his  point  of  view.  The  young  ladies  on 
whom  he  had  fixed  his  eye  when  he  began  to  write  had  to- 
be  considered;  a  Sallustian  brevity  of  expression  would 
easily  drive  them  back  to  their  novels,  and  this  was  a  dan- 
ger to  avoid. 

(3.)  The  most  serious  objection  remains,  and  it  is  noth- 
ing less  than  this,  that  he  was  deficient  in  the  true  historic 
spirit,  and  often  failed  to  regard  the  past  from  the  really 
historical  point  of  view.  WThat  is  the  historical  point  of 
view  ?  Is  it  not  this :  to  examine  the  growth  of  society 
in  by-gone  times  with  a  single  eye  for  the  stages  of  the 
process — to  observe  the  evolution  of  one  stage  out  of  an- 
other previous  stage — to  watch  the  past,  as  far  as  our 
means  allow,  as  we  watch  any  other  natural  phenomena, 
with  the  sole  object  of  recording  them  accurately?  The 
impartiality  of  science  is  absolute.  It  has  no  preferences, 
likes,  or  dislikes.  It  considers  the  lowest  and  the  highest 
1  History,  cap.  iii.  8  Ibid.t  cap.  ix. 


168  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

forms  of  life  with  the  same  interest  and  the  same  zeal ;  it 
makes  no  odious  comparisons  between  lower  and  higher, 
between  younger  and  older ;  but  simply  observes  co-ordi- 
nates, in  time  rising  to  generalizations  and  deductions. 
The  last  work  of  the  greatest  of  English  biologists  was  de- 
voted to  earth-worms,  a  subject  which  earlier  science  would 
have  treated  with  scorn.  Now,  what  does  Macaulay  do  in 
his  observation  of  the  past  ?  He  compares  it,  to  its  dispar- 
agement, with  the  present.  The  whole  of  his  famous  third 
chapter,  on  the  State  of  England,  is  one  long  paean  over  the 
superiority  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  seventeenth 
century — as  if  an  historian  had  the  slightest  concern  with 
that.  Whether  we  are  better  or  worse  than  our  ancestors 
is  a  matter  utterly  indifferent  to  scientific  history,  whose 
object  is  to  explain  and  analyze  the  past,  on  which  the 
present  can  no  more  throw  light  than  the  old  age  of  an 
individual  can  throw  light  on  his  youth.  Macaulay's  con- 
stant preoccupation  is  not  to  explain  his  period  by  previ- 
ous periods,  but  to  show  how  vastly  the  period  of  which 
he  treats  has  been  outstripped  by  the  period  in  which  he 
lives.  Whatever  may  be  the  topic — the  wealth  or  popula- 
tion of  the  country,  the  size  and  structure  of  the  towns,  the 
roads,  the  coaches,  the  lighting  of  London,  it  matters  not 
— the  comparison  always  made  is  with  subsequent  England, 
not  previous  England.  His  enthusiasm  for  modern  im- 
provements is  so  sincere  that  it  produces  the  comical  effect 
of  a  countryman's  open-eyed  astonishment  at  the  wonders 
of  Cheapside.  Of  Manchester  he  says : 

"  That  wonderful  emporium  was  then  a  mean,  ill-built  market-town, 
containing  under  six  thousand  people.  It  then  had  not  a  single 
press :  it  now  supports  a  hundred  printing  establishments.  It  then 
had  not  a  single  coach :  it  now  supports  twenty  coach-makers,** 


v.]  THE  "HISTORY."  169 

Of  Liverpool : 

"  At  present  Liverpool  contains  more  than  three  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants.  The  shipping  registered  at  her  port  amounts  to  be- 
tween four  and  five  hundred  thousand  tons.  Into  her  custom-house 
has  been  repeatedly  paid  in  one  year  a  sum  more  than  thrice  as 
great  as  the  whole  income  of  the  English  Crown  in  1685.  The  re- 
ceipts of  her  post-office,  even  since  the  great  reduction  of  the  duty, 
exceed  the  sum  which  the  postage  of  the  whole  kingdom  yielded  to 
the  Duke  of  York.  Her  endless  quays  and  warehouses  are  among 
the  wonders  of  the  world.  Yet  even  those  docks  and  quays  and 
warehouses  seem  hardly  to  suffice  for  the  gigantic  trade  of  the  Mer- 
sey ;  and  already  a  rival  city  is  growing  fast  on  the  opposite  shore." 

Of  Cheltenham  we  are  told :  "  Corn  grew  and  cattle 
browsed  over  the  space  now  covered  by  that  long  succes- 
sion of  streets  and  villas." 

In  Tunbridge  Wells— 

"we  see  a  town  which  would  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago  have 
ranked  in  population  fourth  or  fifth  among  the  towns  of  England. 
The  brilliancy  of  the  shops,  and  the  luxury  of  the  private  dwellings, 
far  surpasses  anything  that  England  could  then  show." 

The  list  might  be  indefinitely  extended.  A  word  may 
be  added  on  Macaulay's  delight  in  villas.  They  were  evi- 
dently to  him  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  in  a 
town  or  a  landscape.  Contrasting  the  London  of  Charles 
II.  with  the  London  of  the  present  day,  he  says : 

"  The  town  did  not  as  now  fade  by  imperceptible  degrees  into  the 
country.  No  long  avenues  of  villas,  embowered  in  lilacs  and  labur- 
nums, extended  from  the  great  centre  of  wealth  and  civilization  al- 
most to  the  boundaries  of  Middlesex.  ...  On  the  west,  scarcely  one 
of  toose  stately  piles  of  building  which  are  inhabited  by  the  noble 
and  the  wealthy  was  in  existence." 

Even  in  the  crisis  of  his  hero's  fate,  when  William  is 
about  to  land  at  Torbay,  he  cannot  forget  to  do  justice  to 


170  MACAULAY.  [CHAP.  y. 

his  favourite  form  of  domestic  architecture.    Speaking  of 
Torquay  he  says : 

"  The  inhabitants  are  about  ten  thousand  in  number.  The  newly 
built  churches  and  chapels,  the  baths  and  libraries,  the  hotels  and 
public  gardens,  the  infirmary  and  museum,  the  white  streets  rising 
terrace  above  terrace,  the  gay  villas  peeping  from  the  midst  of  shrub- 
beries and  flower-beds,  present  a  spectacle  widely  different  from  any 
that  in  the  seventeenth  century  England  could  show." 

Now  the  serious  question  is  whether  the  very  opposite 
of  the  historical  spirit  and  method  is  not  shown  in  remarks 
of  this  kind  ?  Supposing  even  we  share  Macaulay's  singu- 
lar partiality  for  villas — which  is  the  last  thing  many  would 
be  disposed  to  do — yet  what  bearing  have  modern  villas 
on  the  history  of  England  in  the  seventeenth  century? 
This  is  to  invert  the  historical  problem ;  to  look  at  the 
past  through  the  wrong  end  of  the  telescope.  The  ex- 
planation of  this  singular  aberration  will  probably  be  found 
in  Macaulay's  constant  immersion  in  politics.  Many  pas- 
sages of  his  history  have  the  appearance  of  fragments  of  a 
budget  speech  setting  forth  the  growth  of  the  country  in 
wealth  and  population,  and  consequent  capacity  to  supply 
an  increased  revenue.  When  he  answered  poor  Southey's 
sentimental  dreams  about  the  virtue  and  happiness  of  the 
olden  time,  he  was  nearly  wholly  in  the  right.  But  he  did 
not  see  that  this  polemical  attitude  was  out  of  place  in  his- 
tory. He  became  at  too  early  a  period  in  life  a  serious 
politician,  not  to  damage  his  faculty  as  an  historian.  Gui- 
zot  never  recovered  his  historical  eye  after  he  was  Prime 
Minister  of  France,  though  he  lived  for  nearly  thirty  years 
in  enforced  leisure  afterwards.  Gibbon  and  Grote  had  just 
as  much  of  politics  as  an  historian  can  bear,  and  neither 
of  them  remotely  equalled  Macaulay's  participation  in  pub- 
lic affairs. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    END. 

MACAULAT  seems  to  have  enjoyed  almost  uninterrupted 
good  and  even  robust  health  until  he  had  passed  his  fif- 
tieth year.  Neither  his  incessant  work,  nor  the  trying  cli- 
mate of  India,  nor  the  more  trying  climate  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  produced  more  than  temporary  indisposition, 
which  he  speedily  shook  off.  He  was  a  broad-chested  ac- 
tive man,  taking  a  great  deal  of  exercise,  which  was  how- 
ever almost  confined  to  walking.  "  He  thought  nothing 
of  going  on  foot  from  the  Albany  to  Clapham,  and  from 
Clapham  on  to  Greenwich ;"  and  as  late  as  August,  in  the 
year  1851,  he  mentions  in  his  diary  having  walked  from 
Malvern  to  Worcester  and  back — say  sixteen  miles.  He 
had  the  questionable  habit  of  reading  during  his  walks,  by 
which  the  chief  benefit  of  the  exercise  both  to  mind  and 
body  is  probably  lost.  The  solitary  walker  is  not  without 
his  compensations,  or  even  his  delights.  A  peculiarly 
vivid  meditation  is  kindled  in  some  men  by  the  unfa- 
tiguing  movement,  and  a  massive  grouping  and  clarifying 
of  ideas  is  obtained  by  a  long  ramble,  which  could  not  be 
reached  in  the  study  or  at  the  desk.  Rousseau  and  Words- 
worth habitually  composed  in  their  walks.  They  were 
reading  in  their  own  way,  but  not  in  the  same  book  as 
Macaulay.  The  quantity  of  printed  matter  that  he  could 
M  8* 


172  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

get  through  on  these  occasions  was  prodigious,  and  on  a 
lesser  authority  than  his  own  hardly  to  be  believed.  In 
the  walk  just  mentioned,  between  Worcester  and  Malrern, 
he  read  no  less  than  fourteen  books  of  the  Odyssey.  This 
was  only  a  particular  instance  of  that  superabundant  en- 
ergy and  pervading  over-strenuousness  which  belonged  to 
the  constitution  of  a  mind  that  was  well-nigh  incapable  of 
repose  and  thoughtful  brooding.  On  a  journey  "  his  flow 
of  spirits  was  unfailing — a  running  fire  of  jokes,  rhymes, 
puns  never  ceasing.  It  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  that  he 
never  got  tired  on  a  journey.  As  the  day  wore  on  he  did 
not  feel  the  desire  to  lie  back  and  be  quiet,  and  he  liked 
to  find  his  companions  ready  to  be  entertained  to  the 
last."1  Even  when  he  and  his  fellow-travellers  had  gained 
the  timely  inn,  his  overpowering  vivacity  was  not  quenched, 
but  he  would  produce  impromptu  translations  from  Greek, 
Latin,  Italian,  or  Spanish  writers,  or  read  selections  from 
Sterne,  Smollett,  or  Fielding,  or  fall  to  capping  verses  or 
stringing  rhymes  with  his  nephew  and  nieces.  His  swift 
energy  impressed  even  strangers  as  something  portentous. 
A  bookseller  with  whom  he  dealt  informs  me  that  he  never 
had  such  a  customer  in  his  life ;  that  Macaulay  would  come 
into  his  shop,  run  through  shelf  after  shelf  of  books,  and 
in  less  time  than  some  men  would  take  to  select  a  volume, 
he  would  order  a  pile  of  tomes  to  be  sent  off  to  the  Al- 
bany. 

Whether  this  life  at  constant  high -pressure  was  the 
cause  of  his  health  giving  way  does  not  appear,  but  in 
July,  1852,  he  was  suddenly  stricken  down  by  heart  dis- 
ease, which  was  soon  followed  by  a  confirmed  asthma. 
This  sudden  failure  of  health  seems  to  have  taken  him  by 
surprise;  but  even  his  own  journal  shows  that  he  had  re- 
1  Trevelyan,  vol.  ii.  cap.  xi. 


TL]  THE  END.  173 

ceived  warnings  which  to  a  man  of  a  more  introspective 
turn  would  have  been  full  of  significance.  But  the  mal- 
ady declared  itself  at  last  with  a  malignity  which  even  he 
could  not  overlook.  "  I  became,"  he  says,  "  twenty  years 
older  in  a  week.  A  mile  is  more  to  me  now  than  ten 
miles  a  year  ago."  Forty  years  of  incessant  labour  had 
done  their  work. 

What  follows  right  up  to  the  closing  scene  is  very 
touching,  and  shows  that  courageous  side  of  Macaulay's 
nature  on  which  his  uniformly  prosperous  life  never  made 
adequate  demands.  No  man  probably  would  have  fought 
a  long  doubtful  uphill  fight  with  more  resolute  fortitude 
than  he.  Had  his  lot  been  cast  in  arduous  times,  had  he 
been  tried  by  misfortune,  or  injustice,  or  persecution,  his 
biography,  we  may  be  sure,  would  have  been  far  more  ex- 
citing than  it  is.  Though  he  was  the  most  peaceful  of 
men,  he  was  thoroughly  courageous.  If  he  had  lived  in 
the  times  of  which  he  was  the  historian,  he  would  have 
stood  in  the  breach  either  as  a  soldier  or  a  politician 
among  the  bravest:  he  would  have  led  a  forlorn-hope, 
either  civic  or  military,  when  other  men's  hearts  were  fail- 
ing them  for  fear.  Physical  or  political  courage  of  an 
exceptional  kind  he  was  never  called  upon  to  show.  But 
the  calm,  patient  endurance  with  which  he  supported  the 
slow  invasion  of  a  mortal  disease,  adds  another  trait  to 
the  amiability  of  a  character  which  was  unselfish  from 
first  to  last.  Though  well  aware  of  the  nature  of  his  ill- 
ness, he  allowed  his  sister,  Lady  Trevelyan,  the  consola- 
tion of  thinking  that  he  did  not  know  how  ill  he  was. 
Oppressed  as  he  was  with  asthma  and  heart  disease, 
though  so  weak  at  times  that  he  could  hardly  walk  even 
with  a  stick,  he  resolutely  faced  and  accomplished  his 

daily  "  task,"  and  wrote  the  whole  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 

26 


174  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

volumes  with  undiminished  animation  and  thoroughness. 
Unfortunately,  he  was  again  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  people  of  Edinburgh  had  promptly  re- 
gretted and  repented  the  disgrace  they  had  done  them- 
Belves  by  unseating  him  in  1847  for  his  sturdy  conscien- 
tiousness in  supporting  the  Maynooth  Grant,  and  placed 
him  at  the  head  of  the  poll  in  the  general  election  of 
1852,  even  after  he  had  haughtily  refused  to  give  any 
pledge,  or  even  to  stand  for  the  City.  Although  his  con- 
stituents were  willing  to  grant  him  every  indulgence,  and 
his  attendance  in  the  House  was  by  no  means  assiduous, 
yet  he  often  did  attend  when  prudence  would  have  kept 
him  at  home.  "  We  divided  twice,"  he  wrote  in  his 
diary,  "and  a  very  wearisome  business  it  was.  I  walked 
slowly  home  at  two  in  the  morning,  and  got  to  bed  much 
exhausted.  A  few  such  nights  will  make  it  necessary  for 
me  to  go  to  Clifton  again."  On  another  occasion:  "  I  was 
in  pain  and  very  poorly.  I  went  down  to  the  House  and 
paired.  On  my  return,  just  as  I  was  getting  into  bed,  I 
received  a  note  from  Hayter  to  say  that  he  had  paired 
me.  I  was  very  unwilling  to  go  out  at  that  hour"  (it  was 
in  January),  "and  afraid  of  the  night  air;  but  I  have  a 
horror  of  the  least  suspicion  of  foul  play:  so  I  dressed 
and  went  again  to  the  House,  settled  the  matter  about  the 
pairs,  and  came  back  at  near  twelve  o'clock."  The  old  in- 
satiable  appetite  for  work  returned  upon  him  during  the 
intermissions  of  his  malady.  He  was  chairman  of  the 
committee  which  was  appointed  to  consider  the  proposal 
to  throw  open  the  Indian  Civil  Service  to  public  competi- 
tion, and  had  to  draw  up  the  report.  "  I  must  and  will 
finish  it  in  a  week,"  he  wrote,  and  was  as  good  as  his 
word. 

He  made  only  three  speeches  during  his  last  four  years 


TL]  THE  END.  175 

in  the  House,  all  in  the  year  1853.  The  effort  was  far 
too  great  and  exhausting  to  his  shattered  strength.  Yet 
one  of  these  speeches  was  a  brilliant  oratorical  triumph, 
a  parallel  to  his  performance  on  the  copyright  question, 
when  he  defeated  a  measure  which  but  for  his  inter" 
vention  would  undoubtedly  have  been  carried.  Lord 
Hotham's  bill  for  the  exclusion  of  Judges  from  the  House 
of  Commons  had  passed  through  all  stages  but  the  last 
without  a  division.  Macaulay  determined  to  oppose  it, 
but  went  down  to  the  House  very  nervous  and  anxious 
about  the  result.  The  success  was  complete,  indeed  over- 
whelming. The  bill  "  was  not  thrown  out,  but  pitched 
out."  But  the  cost  was  excessive.  Macaulay  said  he  was 
knocked  up ;  and  a  journalist  who  has  left  an  impressive 
account  of  the  whole  scene  remarked  that  he  was  "  trem- 
bling when  he  sat  down,  and  had  scarcely  the  self-posses- 
sion to  acknowledge  the  eager  praises  which  were  offered 
by  the  Ministers  and  others  in  the  neighbourhood." 

He  was  much  moved  by  the  Crimean  War  and  the  In- 
dian Mutiny,  as  one  might  expect;  but  on  neither  was 
his  line  of  thought  or  sentiment  at  all  elevated  above  that 
of  the  multitude.  An  ardent  admirer  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
his  patriotism  was  of  the  old-fashioned  type — of  a  man 
who  could  remember  Wellington's  campaigns.  When 
travelling  on  the  Continent  he  was  accustomed  to  say  that 
he  liked  to  think  that  he  was  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city. 
Indeed,  there  was  a  perceptible  element  of  Chauvinism  in 
his  composition.  The  fact  calls  for  no  remark;  it  was 
quite  in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  his  character,  which  at 
no  time  betrayed  the  slightest  tendency  to  press  forward 
to  wider  and  loftier  views  than  those  generally  popular  in 
his  time.  Not  a  doubt  seems  to  have  crossed  his  mind 
as  to  the  policy  or  expediency  of  the  Crimean  War — • 


176  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

whether  it  was  a  wise  thing  even  from  a  narrowly  patriotic 
point  of  view.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  had 
ever  considered  or  come  to  any  conclusion  on  the  compli- 
cated problems  of  the  Eastern  question.  His  dislike  of 
speculation  even  extended  to  the  domain  of  politics.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  cite  from  his  letters  and  journals 
when  travelling  abroad  a  single  sentence  indicating  in- 
terest in  and  observation  of  the  laws,  institutions,  and 
local  conditions  of  foreign  countries.  His  utterances  on 
the  Indian  Mutiny  can  only  be  read  with  regret,  and 
show  what  an  insecure  guide  the  most  benevolent  senti- 
ment may  be  when  unsupported  by  reasoned  principle. 
He  verified  Michelet's  aphorism,  "Qu'il  n'y  a  rien  de  si 
cruel  que  la  pitie."  In  September,  1857,  he  wrote:  "It 
is  painful  to  be  so  revengeful  as  I  feel  myself.  I,  who 
cannot  bear  to  see  a  beast  or  a  bird  in  pain,  could  look 
on  without  winking  while  Nana  Sahib  underwent  all  the 
tortures  of  Ravaillac.  .  .  .  With  what  horror  I  used  to 
read  in  Livy  how  Fulvius  put  to  death  the  whole  Capuan 
Senate  in  the  second  Punic  War!  and  with  what  equa- 
nimity I  could  hear  that  the  whole  garrison  of  Delhi,  all 
the  Moulavies  and  Mussulman  doctors  there,  and  all  the 
rabble  of  the  bazaar,  had  been  treated  in  the  same  way ! 
Is  this  wrong?"  Clearly  it  was  wrong  in  a  man  of  Ma- 
caulay's  culture  and  experience.  He  might  have  remem- 
bered with  what  just  severity  he  had  branded  cruelty  in 
his  History  and  Essays,  with  what  loathing  he  had  spoken 
of  the  Duke  of  York's  delight  in  witnessing  the  infliction 
of  torture.  One  must  take  the  liberty  of  entirely  disbe- 
lieving his  report  of  his  own  feelings,  and  of  thinking  that 
if  the  matter  had  been  brought  to  a  practical  test  he 
would  much  have  preferred  being  tortured  by  the  Nana  to 
torturing  him  himself.  His  tone,  however,  is  curious  as 


YL]  THE  END.  177 

one  of  the  many  proofs  of  the  untheoretic  cast  of  his 
mind.  Philosophy  was  well  avenged  for  the  scorn  witk 
which  he  treated  her. 

The  glimpse  we  catch  of  Macaulay  in  these  latter  years, 
sitting  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  death,  is  touching  even  to 
strangers;  and  the  reality  must  have  been  pathetic  and 
painful  beyond  words  to  those  who  loved  him  and  had 
ever  experienced  his  boundless  affection.  He  waited  for 
the  final  summons  with  entire  calmness  and  self-possession. 
"  I  am  a  little  low,"  he  wrote,  "  but  not  from  apprehension, 
for  I  look  forward  to  the  inevitable  close  with  perfect 
serenity,  but  from  regret  for  what  I  love.  I  sometimes 
hardly  command  my  tears  when  I  think  how  soon  I  may 
leave  them."  He  had  also  another  regret,  which  might 
well  have  been  a  poignant  one — the  leaving  of  his  work 
unfinished ;  but  he  refers  to  it  very  softly  and  sweetly : 
"  To-day  I  wrote  a  pretty  fair  quantity  of  history.  I  should 
be  glad  to  finish  William  before  I  go.  But  this  is  like  the 
old  excuses  that  were  made  to  Charon."  As  he  passed 
through  "the  cold  gradations  of  decay"  his  spirit  mani- 
festly rose  into  a  higher  range.  A  self-watching  tenderness 
of  conscience  appears,  of  which  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
find  traces  before.  He  was  anxious  lest  the  irritability 
produced  by  disease  should  show  itself  by  petulance  and 
want  of  consideration  for  others.  "  But  I  will  take  care. 
I  have  thought  several  times  of  late  that  the  last  scene  of 
the  play  was  approaching.  I  should  wish  to  act  it  simply, 
but  with  fortitude  and  gentleness  united."  At  last  he 
had  been  forced  to  look  down  into  the  dark  abyss  which 
surrounds  life,  from  which  he  had  hitherto  turned  away 
with  rather  too  marked  a  persistence.  His  tone  of  reso- 
lute contentedness,  before  his  illness,  was  apt  to  be  too 
emphatic.  "  October  25, 1859. — My  birthday.  I  am  fifty 


178  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

Well,  I  have  had  a  happy  life.  I  do  not  know  that  any 
one  whom  I  have  seen  close  has  had  a  happier.  Some 
things  I  regret;  but  who  is  better  off?"  And  there  are 
other  utterances  of  a  similar  kind.  He  clearly  avoided, 
on  principle  as  well  as  from  inclination,  dwelling  on  the 
gloomy  side  of  things.  It  gave  him  pain  to  look  towards 
the  wastes  which  skirt  human  existence,  and  he  found  no 
profit  in  doing  so.  When  troubles  and  trials  came  he 
knew  he  could  bear  them  as  well  as  the  most ;  but  he  felt 
no  call  to  go  and  look  at  them  when  afar  off.  He  turned 
to  the  hearths  and  hearts  warm  with  human  love  that  he 
could  trust,  and  willingly  forgot  the  inclemency  outside. 
His  contentedness  was,  no  doubt,  corroborated  by  another 
circumstance,  that  his  illness  never  apparently  was  of  a 
gastric  kind.  He  was  never  inspired  by  the  tenth  (de- 
monic) muse  of  indigestion,  the  baleful  goddess  who  is  re- 
sponsible for  much  of  the  Weltschmerz  and  passionate 
unrest  which  has  found  voice  in  modern  times.  But  now 
he  is  brought  face  to  face  with  realities  which  cannot  be 
ignored.  For,  by  one  of  those  fatalities  which  seem  to 
wait  till  a  man  has  been  brought  low  before  they  fall 
upon  him  with  crushing  weight,  the  beloved  sister  (Lady 
Trevelyan),  in  whom  and  in  whose  family  for  long  years 
he  had  garnered  up  his  heart,  would  be  compelled  in  a 
few  months  to  join  her  husband  in  India,  where  he  had 
been  appointed  Governor  of  Madras.  "  He  endured  it. 
manfully,  and  almost  silently,  but  his  spirits  never  recover- 
ed the  blow."1  The  full  anguish  of  the  blow  itself  he  did 
not  live  to  feel,  for  he  died  suddenly  and  peacefully  cs 
the  evening  of  the  28th  December,  1859,  at  Holly  Lodge^ 
whither  he  had  removed  in  1856,  on  leaving  his  charcbfisa 

1  Trevelyan,  vol.  ii.  cajx  xv. 


YL]  THE  END.  179 

in  the  Albany.     He  was  buried  in  Poets'  Corner,  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  on  9th  January,  1860. 

In  reviewing  Macaulay's  life  and  considering  the  appli- 
cation of  his  rare  gifts,  one  is  led  to  wish  that  fortune  "had 
either  favoured  him  more  or  less.  Had  he  been  born  to 
ancestral  wealth  and  honours,  or  had  he  been  condemned 
to  prolonged  poverty  and  obscurity,  it  is  probable  that  he 
would  have  developed  resources  and  powers  which,  as  it 
happened,  he  was  never  called  upon  to  display,  which  it  ia 
very  likely  he  himself  did  not  suspect.  It  must  be  regret- 
ted that  he  was  not  free  to  follow  either  politics  or  litera- 
ture with  undivided  attention.  Had  he  been  a  broad-acred 
squire  with  an  historic  name,  we  cannot  doubt  that  his  life 
would  have  been  devoted  to  politics ;  and  we  can  even  less 
doubt  that  he  would  promptly  have  made  his  way  into 
the  front  rank  of  contemporary  statesmen.  His  unsurpass- 
ed business  talent  and  faculty  of  getting  through  work; 
his  oratorical  gifts,  which  would  soon,  with  the  proper 
training,  have  developed  into  a  complete  mastery  of  de- 
bate ;  his  prudence,  vigour,  self-command,  and  innate  ami- 
ability ;  his  vast  knowledge  and  instantaneous  command 
of  it — all  point  to  his  possessing  the  stuff  of  which  Eng- 
lish Premiers  are  made.  Who  among  his  contemporaries 
can  be  named  as  more  endowed  with  the  qualities  of  a 
great  parliamentary  leader  than  he  ?  Was  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, or  Lord  Melbourne,  or  Lord  Derby,  or  Sir  James  Gra- 
ham, or  Palmerston,  or  Cornewall  Lewis  his  equal  ?  If  we 
abstract  the  prestige  conferred  by  great  name  or  great 
fortune  in  our  oligarchic  society,  he  was  not  the  equal,  but 
the  superior,  of  all  of  them,  excepting  Peel  and  Disraeli; 
and  he  would  be  rash  who  ventured  to  assert  that  if  he 
had  been  a  baronet  with  40,000£.  a  year,  like  Peel,  or  had 
been  in  such  a  position  as  Lord  Beaconsfield  was  to  devote 


180  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

all  his  time,  energy,  and  ambition  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, he  would  have  yielded  to  either.  But,  like  Burke — 
though  his  case  is  certainly  much  less  shocking — the  novus 
homo  of  genius  was  not  allowed  to  compete  for  the  honour 
of  serving  his  country  in  the  highest  office. 

On  the  other  hand,  suppose  that  circumstances  had  ex- 
cluded him  from  politics  altogether,  and  that  he  had  been 
reduced  to  literature  alone  as  an  avenue  to  fame.  I  have 
already  said  that  I  think  that  politics  were  his  forte,  and 
that,  although  he  will  live  in  memory  chiefly  as  a  writer, 
he  was  by  nature  a  practical  man.  But  it  is  not  inconsist- 
ent with  this  view  to  hold  that  as  a  writer  he  would  have 
been  all  the  better  if  he  had  not  meddled  with  politics  at 
all,  or  only  very  sparingly.  Politics  are  a  good  school  for 
a  student  with  an  excessive  tendency  to  seclusion.  Gib- 
bon was,  probably,  benefited  by  being  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  because  he  was  essentially  a  recluse, 
and  a  personal  contact  with  public  affairs  supplied  a  use- 
ful corrective  to  his  natural  bent.  But  he  never  became 
an  active  politician  like  Macaulay,  and  Macaulay  was  in  no 
need  of  the  discipline  which  was  useful  to  Gibbon.  Ma- 
caulay's  tendency  was  very  far  from  being  too  esoteric 
and  speculative.  All  the  gymnastic  he  could  have  derived 
from  a  severe  drilling  in  Hegelianism  at  Berlin  or  Tubin- 
gen would  barely  have  sufficed  to  correct  his  practical,  un- 
speculative  tone  of  mind.  Instead  of  this  he  had  no  gym- 
nastic at  all,  except  such  as  can  be  got  from  Greek  and 
Latin  grammar.  Then  before  he  was  thirty  he  became  a 
member  of  Parliament  —  the  very  last  place,  as  he  well 
knew,  likely  to  foster  a  broad  and  philosophic  temper. 
Considering  what  he  did  achieve  in  the  whirl  of  business 
in  which  he  lived  till  he  was  well  advanced  into  middle 
age,  can  we  doubt  that  a  life  of  solitude  and  study  would 


vi.]  THE  END.  181 

have  led  him  into  regions  of  thought  and  inquiry  to  which 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  never  penetrated?  It  is  not  the 
number  or  even  the  quality  of  the  books  read  which  makes 
for  edification,  wisdom,  and  real  knowledge,  but  the  open 
eye,  the  recipient  spirit,  the  patience  and  humility  content- 
ed to  grope  slowly  towards  the  light.  Macaulay's  mode 
of  life  was  adverse  to  inwardness,  reflection,  meditation ; 
and  he  had  no  such  innate  tendency  in  that  direction  that 
he  could  dispense  with  help  from  any  quarter.  Outward 
circumstances  alone  prevented  him  from  taking  a  first 
rank  in  politics;  circumstances  and  inward  disposition 
combined  to  deprive  him  of  the  very  highest  rank  in 
literature. 

The  attempt  to  classify  a  great  writer,  to  fix  his  true 
place  on  the  scroll  of  fame,  is  not  blameworthy,  as  if  it 
were  identical  with  disparagement.  However  imperfect 
the  attempt  may  be,  if  made  with  good  faith  it  may  be 
useful,  as  leading  to  a  more  accurate  judgment  later  on. 
The  settlement  of  the  rank  and  position  of  eminent 
writers  who  have  clearly  passed  into  the  permanent  litera- 
ture of  a  nation  cannot  be  left  to  the  caprice  of  individual 
readers.  Literary  history  would  become  a  scene  of  intol- 
erable confusion,  without  some  effort  towards  grouping 
and  classifying  the  numerous  candidates  for  fame.  Earli- 
er attempts  in  this  direction,  like  the  present,  are  certain 
to  be  erroneous  and  faulty  in  many  respects ;  but  if  they 
provoke  their  own  rectification  and  supersession,  they  will 
not  be  useless.  Among  English  men  of  letters  Macaulay 
must  ever  hold  a  place.  The  question  is,  what  place? 
He  is  still  generally  spoken  of  with  somewhat  indiscrim- 
inating  eulogy ;  but  a  serious  opposition  has  already  been 
made  to  the  vulgar  estimate  of  his  merits,  and  it  is  more 


182  MACAULAY.  [CHAP. 

likely  to  grow  than  diminish  with  the  coming  years.  An 
equitable  agreement  is  manifestly  desirable  between  those 
who  think  his  eloquence  unsurpassed  and  those  who 
think  his  style  detestable;  a  middle  term  will  have  to  be 
found. 

It  is  an  error,  not  always  corrected  by  age  and  expe- 
rience, to  ask  of  men  and  writers  what  they  cannot  give. 
Macaulay  can  give  us  sumptuous  and  brilliant  pictures  of 
past  times,  which  so  far  have  not  had  their  equals.  His 
narrative  power  among  historians  is  quite  unapproached, 
and  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  greatest  masters  of  prose 
fiction.  Here  we  may  pause,  and  doubt  whether  eulogy 
can  conscientiously  go  further.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
has  little  to  say  either  to  the  mind  or  the  heart.  He  has 
not  been  a  pioneer  into  any  ground  untrodden  by  previous 
speculators ;  he  is  not  one  of  those  writers  whom  we  seek 
"  when  our  light  is  low,"  telling  us  of  the  things  which 
belong  unto  our  peace.  But  he  has  related — or  may  we 
not  say  sung? — many  great  events  in  English  history  with 
epic  width  and  grandeur.  He  was,  moreover,  an  honest, 
brave,  tender-hearted  man ;  a  good  citizen,  a  true  friend, 
full  of  affection  and  sell '-  sacrifice  towards  his  kindred, 
virtuous  and  upright  in  every  relation  of  life.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  his  sweet,  unselfish  nature  would  have 
desired  higher  praise. 


In  the  year  1875  a  statue  by  Mr.  Woolner  was  erected 
in  the  ante-chapel  of  Trinity  College,  for  which  the  follow- 
ing inscription,  at  the  request  of  the  College,  was  written 
by  Professor  Jebb : 


THE  END.  183 

THOMAE   BABINGTON   BARONI   MACATTLAY 
HISTORICO   DOCTRINA   FIDE   VIVIDIS   INGENII   LUMINIBUS   PRAECLARO 

QUI   PRIMUS   ANNALES   ITA   SCRIPSIT 
UT   VKRA   FICTIS   LIBENTIUS   LEGERENTUR, 

ORATORI   REBUS   COPIOSO   SENTENTIIS   PRESSO  ANIMI   MOTIBUS   ELATO 
QUI    CUM   OT1I    STUDIIS    UNICE    GAUDERET 

NUNQUAM   REIPUBLICAE    DEFUIT, 

SIVE  INDIA  LITTERIS   ET  LEGIBUS   EMEND AND A 

SITE    DOMI    CONTRA   LICENTIAM    TUENDA    LIBERTAS   VOCARET, 

POETAE   NIHIL   HUMILE    SPIRANTI 

VIRO   GUI    CUNCTORUM   VENERATIO 

MINORIS   FUIT   QUAM   SUORUM   AMOR 

HUIUS   COLLEGII   OHM   SOCIO 

QUOD   SUMMA   DUM   VIXIT   PIETATE   COLUIT 

AM1CI   MAERENTES   S.S.F.C. 

Of  all  the  posthumous  honors  Macaulay  has  received 
Jus  probably  would  have  gratified  him  the  most. 


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